Apple market cap could hit $1 trillion, major investors say

Gains in shares of Apple Inc. could take the world’s largest publicly traded company to a market capitalization of perhaps as high as $1 trillion, some of the country’s biggest investors said on Monday.

"It’s an attractively priced, double-digit returner," said Steve Einhorn, a top executive at Leon Cooperman’s $10 billion hedge fund Omega Advisors Inc.

"We own it, and we like it," he said, speaking at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit in New York. The company could reach the trillion-dollar mark, "eventually," he said.

Shares of the tech company have gained about 42 percent this year, helped by strong sales of the company’s flagship iPhone.

Last month the company came under pressure again from billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn to buy back more shares using its $133 billion cash pile.

"Did I think that Icahn said the right things (on Apple)? Yes," Einhorn said on Monday.

In June, the company split its stock seven-for-one and in April it raised its share repurchase authorization to $90 billion from the $60 billion announced a year earlier.

Apple’s market capitalization could reach as high as $1 trillion next year, said Michael Corcelli, head of the Miami-based Alexander Alternative Capital.

"Absolutely, without a doubt," he said, citing the company’s popular tablets and phones going into the holiday shopping period, when retail sales generally spike.

"Right now Apple is the most obvious thing that has to go up," Corcelli added.