Apple’s 2,275% gain under Tim Cook is a tough act for John Ternus to follow

Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook handed over the reins to John Ternus on Tuesday, capping a tenure as chief executive officer that cemented the company as an iconic global brand and turned its stock into one of the most reliable bets.

The shares have soared 2,275% since Cook took over from legendary founder Steve Jobs on Aug. 24, 2011. Cook inherited a company with a market capitalization of less than $350 billion and built the maker of iPhones and Mac computers into a diverse $4.6 trillion business that also sells watches, AirPods and financial services.

“Steve Jobs left huge shoes to fill, but Cook is also leaving big shoes, albeit of a different type, given his very different approach to expanding the company’s growth engines,” said Chris Brigati, chief investment officer at SWBC. “He’s certainly done amazing things as CEO, and every shareholder has benefited, probably more than was expected when he took over.”


Ternus will face an early test at a critical event next week, when he’s expected to unveil a foldable version of the iPhone, along with other product updates.

“The ideal for Ternus wis ill be to blend the Jobs and Cook approaches,” Brigati said, citing Cook’s steady, positive reign against “the otherworldly innovation and massively impressive growth of the Jobs era.”

Apple’s stock gains under Cook are even more impressive when accounting for dividends. During his time as CEO, the shares climbed a whopping 2,736% on a total-return basis. Over the same period, the S&P 500 Index was up 769%, including dividends, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index jumped 1,512%.

The gain puts Apple among the 40 best performers in the S&P 500 over that stretch, but well behind Nvidia Corp., by far the biggest gainer with a more than 72,000% surge. Several other Big Tech stocks outperformed Apple in the Cook era, including Tesla Inc. and Broadcom Inc.

“Cook’s legacy will be that he was a steady hand on the wheel over not just a long period of time, but a period of time that featured huge changes in the technology landscape,” said Allen Bond, managing director and portfolio manager at Jensen Investment Management, which owns Apple shares.

While several companies tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure — including Micron Technology Inc. and Seagate Technology Holdings Plc — have outpaced Apple, the stock has benefited from its image as an anti-AI play during periods of angst over the technology. Its 40-day correlation to the S&P 500 recently turned negative for the first time in more than a decade.

“Under Tim Cook, Apple has created market cap growth at a rate of roughly $32 million an hour, every hour, for nearly 15 years,” Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote in an Aug. 20 report. It was the first firm to top $3 trillion in market value and has repeatedly attained the status of the world’s largest company.

The stock accounts for 7.1% of the S&P 500, up from less than 3.3% in 2011. Its weighting peaked at nearly 7.9% last month.

Cook oversaw a steady rise in revenue, with sales going from $157 billion in Apple’s fiscal 2012 — his first full year as CEO — to $416 billion in the most recent period. When Apple’s 2026 fiscal year closes at the end of September, revenue is expected to reach $477 billion.

A key driver of revenue growth has been Apple Services. In fiscal 2025, the company generated more than $109 billion from the business, more than a quarter of its total sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In fiscal 2013, the earliest year for which data are available, services were just $16 billion, or 9.4% of Apple’s total.

Cook did oversee successful product launches, such as AirPods and the Apple Watch. But others, like the Vision Pro headset and a failed foray into self-driving cars, fell flat, feeding into criticism that Apple lost its innovative edge. To some investors, the company’s underwhelming AI offerings have been a missed opportunity.

“The push into services is perhaps the most successful thing Cook did, since it is high margin and recurring revenue that is among Apple’s fastest-growing categories,” Bond said. “His biggest flaw is probably AI. It’s hard to not notice that they’re bringing in someone with an engineering and products background to replace him.”

One of the biggest legacies of Cook’s tenure has been his focus on stock buybacks, which have reduced Apple’s outstanding share count by nearly 45% since a 2012 peak, taking it to its lowest since 1998.

Apple has spent more than $840 billion on buybacks since fiscal 2012, according to company data through the first quarter of 2026. In 2014, billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn urged the company to accelerate its buybacks, saying the stock was undervalued.

Under Ternus, the company’s risk appetite could change, according to Bank of America’s Mohan. Apple has moved away from a net cash neutral objective, which “could signal a period of higher investment in R&D, Capex, and larger M&A,” he wrote. “The latter two have not been emphasized in the Tim Cook era but AI could require Apple to move with a higher rate of change.”

While Cook has many fans, Wall Street is less effusive about the company. Of the 58 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who follow the stock, 34 have buy ratings. By contrast, roughly 95% of the analysts covering megacap peers Microsoft Corp., Nvidia and Amazon are bullish on those stocks.

A growing number of Apple bears are also emerging, many of whom take issue with the stock’s elevated valuation. Apple trades at roughly 33 times earnings estimated over the next 12 months compared with its 10-year average of 23. When Cook took over, the multiple was about 12.

“While he isn’t the visionary showman that Jobs was, or as product focused, everything he did was to bolster Apple’s ecosystem and operations, which was a very effective way of increasing the company’s value,” Bond said. “The stock performance reflects that success.”