The largest company in the world just saw its stock moved significantly by two tweets from an investor.
Carl Icahn, a billionaire activist investor who has been in the news a lot lately for his efforts to thwart Michael Dell's efforts to take his company private, tweeted on Tuesday that he has a "large position" in Apple and believes the company's stock is "extremely undervalued."
We currently have a large position in APPLE. We believe the company to be extremely undervalued. Spoke to Tim Cook today. More to come.— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) August 13, 2013
Icahn followed that up with another tweet noting that he had had a "nice conversation" with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple has since confirmed that the two had a conversation.
Had a nice conversation with Tim Cook today. Discussed my opinion that a larger buyback should be done now. We plan to speak again shortly.— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) August 13, 2013
The tweets sent Apple's stock up by more than 5%, effectively adding several billion dollars to the company's market cap. Miguel Rios, an engineering manager at Twitter, captured the moment nicely:
Twitter. pic.twitter.com/ghxt0QvFQz— Miguel Rios (@miguelrios) August 13, 2013
Apple's stock is now on the cusp of rising back above $500 a share for the first time in more than six months. Aside from Icahn's tweets, Apple's stock has been helped by a ruling in its favor in a case against Samsung and reports that the company will unveil the next iPhone on Sept. 10.
[img src="http://media.ycharts.com/charts/c035192799bfeff356993ae2f491d0ec.png" caption="" credit="" alt="AAPL Chart"]AAPL data by YCharts