(source: nytimes.com)

“Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Apple. Apple!!!!!!!”

– Intern Spencer, screaming as he watched the price of everyone’s favorite mega-corporation skyrocket to almost $400 per share.

(Just for fun, compare that with a maximum price of $9.54 per share in 2001.)

The reason for the sudden spike? Apple released its quarterly earnings report* on Tuesday evening, showing a record $28.57 billion in revenue. That’s $28.57 billion. In three months.

In the handy graph above, you can see investors getting excited about the upcoming earnings announcement on Monday and Tuesday, and then pretty much exploding with enthusiasm on Tuesday night.

What else would you expect from a company that has enough cash to buy almost every other mobile phone maker in the world, and that has enough fans in China to support an entire industry of counterfeit Apple stores?

* In the U.S., all publicly traded companies are required to produce earnings reports which disclose their sales numbers and net profit over the prior three months.)