Apple Stock

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares hit record highs on almost every day last week, and closed Friday at a record $127.08. Tuesday's $122.02 close brought Apple's market capitalization to nearly $711 billion, making it the first U.S. company to surpass a $700 billion market cap. That's over twice Microsoft's $350 billion valuation and not quite twice that of Google's $365 billion.

Analysts and investors alike were bullish, and continued the trend of raising Apple shares' target price. Analyst Keith Bachman of BMO Capital Markets raised his target price from $130 to $135, speculating that there are still a lot of iPhone owners who have not yet, but will upgrade to the iPhone 6, and that the Apple Watch will sell 19 million units in 2015. Canaccord Genuity raised its

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) share prices rose slightly over the course of last week. They opened Monday at $118.06 and closed Friday at $118.93. They also hit an all time high of $120.51 on Wednesday. Of note this week, all shareholders of record as of today (2/9/15) will receive a dividend of $0.47 per share, payable this Thursday, February 12. The dividend payout will be a record $2.8 billion.

Other notable items last week:

Data released by Kanter Worldpanel last Wednesday showed that iOS devices edged out Android devices in sales by .1% in the fourth quarter (47.7% to 47.6%). This is the first time since the fourth quarter of 2012 that iOS has held more market share than Android.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares bounced back and reached a record high last week after the company announced its record breaking Q1 FY15 earnings last Tuesday, just after the closing bell. Stock prices jumped 5.5% on high volume trading on Wednesday, and hit a record high of $120 on Friday, though by closing time they were down to $117.16.

Apple's record quarter included a record revenue of $74.6 billion, a 30% increase over the year ago quarter. This resulted in a record quarterly net profit of $18 billion. Revenue was driven by record iPhone sales of 75.4 million units. The company also offered guidance for the second quarter - revenue between $52 and $55 billion, a gross margin of 38.5% - 39.5% and operating expenses of $5.4 to $5.5 billion.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares opened last week on Tuesday morning at $107.84 and made gains for the rest of the week, closing at $112.98 on Friday. Apple will announce its Q1 FY15 earnings tomorrow at 5 PM ET. Most analysts expect very positive numbers from the holiday quarter, and for that success to continue into Q2, as the iPhone 6 is still in very high demand, especially in China.

Ming-Chi Kuo, of KGI Securities, expects record breaking sales of 73 million iPhones over the holiday quarter. He also estimates 61.3 million sales for Q2, which would be up from last year's second quarter. He believes the Apple Watch will launch in March and will sell just under 3 million units before the end of that quarter. He expects a 12-inch MacBook Air with Retina display to hit the shelves sometime before the end of April.

The oft-quoted and usually reliable KGI Securities analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, released a research note in which he forecasts record breaking iPhone sales for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) during the holiday quarter, a March launch for the Apple Watch and a 12-inch MacBook Air sometime before April.

Ming-Chi estimates in his note, which was obtained by AppleInsider, that Apple has sold 73 million iPhones in the holiday quarter, including 43 million iPhone 6 handsets and 16 million iPhone 6 Plus models. This would be a record breaking number for Apple and would surpass the average estimate of around 69 million sales. He believes the success will continue into Q2 FY 2015, amounting to another 61.7 million sales.