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Apple Stock Shares Now Cost Almost as Much as a New iPad

(A pedestrian walks by an Apple Store on January 24, 2012 in San Francisco, California.)

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Today the market’s most valuable stock upped its price—and it didn’t even have to do it with a fancy product rollout!

Granted, the new iPad probably had something to do with Apple’s stock price boost, which broke another record by hitting $600 per share this week before falling again during Wall Street trading. Just a month ago, the company cracked $500 per share for the first time.

For some the skyrocketing price maybe a little spooky. The only two other companies to beat Apple’s current $559 billion valuation are General Electric and Microsoft, which reached their highest points during the dot-com bubble over a decade ago.

But analysts say the tech giant’s sales numbers and projections back up the price.  Last quarter the company posted $13 billion in sales—one of the most profitable quarters ever for a U.S. company.  With a price near that of a new iPad itself, that’s a stock you might want to buy instead of a gadget—it might be a better investment.