Apple Inc. shareholders received their Christmas gift a little early this year as the shares reached record high of $209.04, crossing their previous value of $207. This increase of 3.4%, $6.94 is recorded at NASDAQ.

The anticipations about the launch of tablet computer by the company are getting stronger as the firm has taken a stage on rent at Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, in end of January, for product announcement most likely.

An Apple tablet may be called as “iPad”, as speculated, and will have the large screen of Amazon Kindle reading device, along with touch-sensitive screen and other major features of iPhone, may have cost in between $500 and $1,000.

In a research note on Wednesday, Gene Munster said that there are only 50 percent chances of Apple announcing tablet in January.

Another analyst Yair Reiner predicted the release of the tablet in end of March or April, and added that it could increase Apple’s earning by 25 to 38 cents per share

Market value of Apple ($188 billion) is more than the IBM Corp ($171 billion), General Electric Co. ($164 billion), Chevron Corp ($155 billion) and is closer to Google Inc. ($196 billion) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ($204 billion).

Other major gainers on Thursday were Google, Microsoft Corp., IBM and Xilinx Inc