AAPL has doubled its value in just 21 weeks in what has been described as an “unprecedented” rise in value among five tech giants.
The New York Times reports.
While many companies have been devastated by the pandemic, tech giants have benefited from people working and shopping from home and spending more time online.
[The coronavirus crisis] has lifted [the five companies] to new heights, putting the industry in a position to dominate American business in a way unseen since the days of railroads.
Those five companies now constitute 20 percent of the stock market’s total worth, a level not seen from a single industry in at least 70 years. Apple’s stock market value, the highest of the bunch, is nearly $2 trillion — double what it was just 21 weeks ago.
The piece says that the same arguments for antitrust action against tech giants apply today as they did against large retailers and railroads in times past. Neither retailers nor railroad companies had monopolies, but even a 3% market share was enough to result in new laws being passed.
Apple is fighting antitrust battles on a number of fronts in the US and elsewhere, mostly surrounding the power it holds by controlling the App Store.
According to some competition experts, the concentration in some industries is greater today than in the late 1800s, when Congress passed sweeping antitrust legislation to curb the power of the railroads.
Jan Eeckhout, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, said that in 1929, Sears and A&P accounted for 3 percent of retail sales, a situation that stirred up concern in Congress and helped give rise to additional antitrust laws in 1936.
