Apple Recap: Market Cap Woes, Samsung Boom, Labor Pains

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock dropped 2.36 percent on Friday to close at $439.85, a whole 12.03 percent below the level it was at when the week began. In a dramatic week, the middle of which saw the release of the company’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report, Apple’s status changed from Wall Street’s darling to stock of mystery. Here is a cheat sheet to the key stories that moved with the stock on Friday:

Apple is Bested

Apple lost its status as the largest U.S. publicly traded company by market value during the trading day on Friday to Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) as its shares continued to fall. With Apple falling 2.36 percent on the day to $439.88, its market value stood at roughly $413 billion. Exxon, with its shares largely flat on the day at $91.73, had a market value above $418 billion. Apple had beaten Exxon to the title exactly a year ago, on January 25, 2012. However, since reaching a record-high price in September, its shares have slipped more than 35 percent. It is still the most valuable tech company, with both Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) possessing a value of around $250 billion each… (Read more)