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Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) gain and Alphabet ‘s ( GOOGL ) fall Wednesday — as Google’s head of search exits — made Apple the biggest stock of all, again — and Apple widened its lead Thursday. At the closing bell Wednesday, Apple stock was up almost 2% to 96.35, giving it a market cap over $534 billion, and Alphabet stock was down 4% at 749.38, with a market cap a little over $515 billion. The trend continued Thursday. In early trading in the stock market today , Apple was up a fraction (market cap near $538 billion) and Alphabet was down 1.5% (market cap near $506 billion). Alphabet initially wrested the top market value title from Apple mid-Monday ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings report, the first that detailed business outside Alphabet’s main Google unit. The two stocks have been jostling for supremacy since. Google Head Of Search Leaving Google’s senior vice president for search, Amit Singhal, wrote in a Google Plus blog post Wednesday that he is leaving Feb. 26, after starting with the company when it was “a small startup” in 2000. “As I entered the fifteenth year of working at Google, I’ve been asking myself the question, ‘what would you want to do for the next fifteen?’ The answer has overwhelmingly been: give back to others. It has always been a priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate, and make time for my family amidst competing work constraints — but on both fronts, I simply want to give and do more,” Singhal wrote. “Now is a good time to make this important life change. Things are in amazing shape. Search is stronger than ever, and will only get better in the hands of an outstanding set of senior leaders who are already running the show day-to-day.” Google engineering VP John Giannandrea will take Singhal’s place , Re/Code noted, adding that Giannandrea leads Google’s sprawling research and artificial intelligence efforts, and that Google is now merging the research efforts with search, indicating the priority of machine learning at Alphabet. Oh what a journey! Fifteen amazing years at @google . Time for me to take the next turn. https://t.co/TjZhFG1bm6 — Amit Singhal (@theamitsinghal) February 3, 2016 Apple, Alphabet On Their ‘A’ Game? Apple, which gets an IBD Composite Rating of 68 out of a possible 99, was in the lead at the end of Monday’s regular trading as the largest stock of all. Then Alphabet climbed to a $555 billion market cap in extended trading after the close Monday, as investors cheered its Q4 report, vs. Apple at a $533 billion market value. Companies that have held the largest-stock spot in the past include General Electric ( GE ), General Motors ( GM ) and IBM ( IBM ). Alphabet, which gets a best-possible IBD Composite Rating of 99, is down about 3% so far this year, owing to Wednesday’s reversal. YouTube video, mobile search and programmatic ads helped drive Alphabet revenue up 18% from a year earlier to $21.32 billion in its Q4 report, where analysts expected $20.76 billion. Earnings ex items lifted 26% to $8.67 a share, rocketing past the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $8.09. Image provided by Shutterstock . Scalper1 News
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