Apple shares hit historic high

Apple's shares reached all time high today on good outlook for iPod sales and iPhone rumours.

The company's stock (AAPL) closed up 2.46%, or $2.13 at $88.60 during the regular trading session and is now trading at nearly $89 in the after hours session.

By the way, the company's market capitalization is now at $75.68 billion, making of Apple one of the strongest companies in the PC and consumer electronics market.

Analysts showed a lot of optimism over Apple these days and confirmed an exclusive report MacScoop has posted some weeks ago as they now expect iPod sales to beat all estimates, mainly thanks to the recent release of the new iPod shuffle and to the success of the RED iPod nano line-up.

Rumours that the iPhone is coming in early 2007 are also a reason of Apple's stock recent surge. Many analysts believe Apple is going to enter the mobile phones market in January

Supplier deals related rumours for the iPhone are already starting to spread on the web, showing signs that Apple is indeed readying to start production of iPhones. Among rumoured deal winners PortalPlayer (now owned by NVidia), Broadcom are reported to have won a contract for chips inside Apple's forthcoming mobile phone while Hon Hai is said to have agreed with Apple in a 12 million iPhones manufacturing contract.

Meanwhile, it was also a good day for other tech companies today, as Google (GOOG) has also hit its all time high at $509.65, up 3.95% from $495.05 and DELL saw its stock jumping nearly 10% in after hours trading session, on better than expected financial results.