The new MacBook - Starting at only $954.59!Shares of Apple Inc. today rose $8.24, or 3.91%, on heavier than average volume of 30,602,258 shares to set a new all-time closing high of $218.95.

Apple’s previous closing high was $215.04 set on January 19, 2010. Apple’s all-time high (intraday) stands at $219.70, set during trading today. Apple’s 52-week low was $82.33, set on March 6, 2009.

At market close, Apple’s market value stands at $198.54 billion or, as Eric Savitz notes for Barron’s, “Financial sites all use the latest published share count for Apple, at 906.8 million shares outstanding as of January 15. In fact, Apple’s diluted share count, per its latest 10-Q, was almost 920 million shares, which would give the company a market cap of roughly $202 billion.”

MacDailyNews reader “aapl_investor” did the math exactly: AAPL diluted shares: 919.783 million. Closing price: $218.95. AAPL market cap: $201.39 billion.

On March 5, 1997, thirteen years ago today, Apple’s market value was $2.133 billion. Apple went public on December 12, 1980 and closed with a market cap of $1.431 billion. Apple’s all-time low market value was $630.9 million on July 8, 1982.

The top five U.S. publicly-traded companies are:
1. Exxon Mobil (XOM) – $314.20B
2. Microsoft (MSFT) – $250.73B
3. Wal-Mart (WMT) – $206.00B
4. Apple (AAPL) – $201.39B
5. Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) – $194.25B

Some selected companies’ current market values:
• Google (GOOG) – $179.41B
• IBM (IBM) – $165.30B
• Cisco (CSCO) – $144.34B
• Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) – $122.69B
• Intel (INTC) – $114.84B
• Disney (DIS) – $64.43B
• Amazon (AMZN) – $57.31B
• Nokia (NOK) – $52.40
• Research In Motion (RIMM) – $38.72B
• Sony (SNE) – $36.47B
• Dell (DELL) – $27.16B
• Yahoo! (YHOO) – $22.76B
• Adobe (ADBE) – $18.43B
• Motorola (MOT) – $16.07B
• Palm (PALM) – $956.96M
• RealNetworks (RNWK) – $699.84M

AAPL quote via NASDAQ here.