iPhone 8 excitement is boosting Apple stock to near a record

Anticipation of the iPhone 8 isn’t just running rampant among people who want to get their hands on one. Excitement about Apple’s launch of the new handset on Tuesday has pushed the company’s stock near a new record.

There’s a lot riding on this product announcement, which marks the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone’s release. For the occasion, Apple has reportedly pushed the envelope with a gaggle of nifty new features. But the price tag for many models is also expected to top $1,000, in what could prove to be a test of Apple’s premium strategy.

In recent years, luxury pricing has made it difficult for Apple to penetrate emerging markets like China, where most consumers still aren’t able to shell out so much money for a smartphone. But in other parts of the world, the Apple brand, as much as the iPhone’s features, has nudged consumers to pay up.

For now, Wall Street is betting that Apple’s expected price increase will work. Apple’s shares were up about 2 percent on Monday, trading less than $3 from their all-time closing high of $164.05, a mark set on Sept. 1.

Other notable details:

– Apple is up nearly 40 percent so far this year, the latest chapter in a business turnaround for the ages. The company was nearly bankrupt in the 1990s and saw its shares trading below $1 before the return of founder Steve Jobs in 1997, which eventually led to the release of wildly popular products like the iPod and later the iPhone.

– The market value of Apple as a company is now close to $835 billion, making it the biggest publicly traded company in the world by a healthy margin. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is number two at $650 billion. And with other tech giants rounding out the list of mega-valuations right now, speculation is swirling in Silicon Valley about which one might be the first to cross the $1 trillion valuation milestone.

– The iPhone 8 announcement will also double as a coming out of sorts for the company’s new spaceship-like headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. It’ll be the first event held in the facility’s Steve Jobs Theater.

– All valuations above are as of Friday’s close.