Shares of Apple Inc. today rose $0.66, or 0.29%, on lighter than average volume of 14,433,361 shares to set a new all-time closing high of $225.50.

Apple’s previous closing high was $224.84 set yesterday, March 10, 2010. Apple’s all-time high (intraday) stands at $225.50, set during trading today. Apple’s 52-week low was $89.58, set on March 11, 2009.

At market close, Apple’s market value stands at $204.48 billion since financial sites all use the latest published share count for Apple: 906.8 million shares outstanding as of January 15. However, Apple’s actual diluted share count, as per its latest 10-Q, was 919.783 million shares, which means that the company actually has a market cap of $207.41 billion. For the lists below, we’ll use what the financial sites use.

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:
1. Exxon Mobil (XOM) – $317.36B
2. Microsoft (MSFT) – $255.92B
3. Wal-Mart (WMT) – $205.36B
4. Apple (AAPL) – $204.48B
5. Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) – $203.62B

Selected companies’ current market values:
• Google (GOOG) – $184.79B
• IBM (IBM) – $165.75B
• Cisco (CSCO) – $148.69B
• Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) – $122.66B
• Intel (INTC) – $117.39B
• Disney (DIS) – $65.58B
• Amazon (AMZN) – $59.38B
• Nokia (NOK) – $53.73B
• Research In Motion (RIMM) – $42.31B
• Sony (SNE) – $38.30B
• Dell (DELL) – $27.81B
• Yahoo! (YHOO) – $23.15B
• Adobe (ADBE) – $18.46B
• Motorola (MOT) – $16.26B
• Palm (PALM) – $933.49M
• RealNetworks (RNWK) – $720.06M

AAPL quote via NASDAQ here.

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