Apple’s stock may wear the trillion-dollar crown, but IBM held more sway over the stock market in its heyday | Tech Industry

Apple obviously has a huge amount of market clout now, but in terms of influence on your portfolio, IBM in the 1980s still holds the crown.

Laszlo Birinyi, founder of Birinyi Associates, said he first bought Apple in 1997, and he has never looked back. He said it his firm’s biggest holding, and he’s not worried that it has such a huge impact across the market.

Birinyi said Apple’s $1 trillion market cap, hit for the first time Thursday, is a positive big round number that should be a draw for investors.

“There’s a big difference between Apple and a Google, a Netflix or historically a GE. You’re not only buying the stock, you own the product, literally,” he said. “It’s ubiquitous, not only in the market but for all of us. Not only is the stock doing well for you, but you know the product and you deal with the product every single day.”

Birinyi said he will stay with the stock, unless he sees signs that it is heading for trouble. That could be if it began to invest in businesses outside of its core expertise. “If I see Apple, because they have so much cash, wants to go into oil exploration or something like a supermarket chain, or maybe they own some real estate so they’re going to develop their own malls, that’s when I would say, there’s a change of attitude,” he said.