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Apple Inc crossed $3 trillion in market value in early trading on Tuesday before slipping, after the world's most valuable company briefly hit the milestone a day earlier.

The iPhone maker's shares rose to as much as $182.94 after opening flat at $182.63. Shares need to finish above $182.86 level to record the milestone on a closing basis.

Apple contracts were the second most actively traded U.S. stock options on Tuesday after Tesla Inc, according to the Options Clearing Corp (OCC) data as of 08:21 a.m. ET. The contract with the highest open interest is Jan. 20th call option with a strike price of $200, Refinitiv data showed.

Apple accounts for nearly 7% of S&P 500 index's value, according to Refinitiv data, the highest for a single stock on the index at a time when the benchmark is perched at a peak.

The pandemic fueled demand for iPhones, MacBooks and iPads helped push the company's market capitalization past $2 trillion in August 2020 and add another trillion 16 months later.

"Apple has been one of the key pandemic trades for a lot of people and as we exit the pandemic... the iPhone maker is going to struggle a little bit," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda in New York.

"The next big product breakthrough is nowhere near. It's going to be a lot harder for Apple to get to four and five trillion than it was for it to go from two to three."

Apple plans to expand into categories such as self-driving cars and augmented reality as it looks to reduce its reliance on its top-selling iPhones that make up for more than half of its revenue.

Notably, Apple is worth more than any of Europe's main regional indexes including Britain's FTSE 100, France's CAC 40, Germany's DAX, Spain's IBEX 35 and Italy's FTSE MIB.