Apple may or may not be 100 percent better than any other publicly-traded U.S. company, but it is 100 percent bigger.

The technology titan's market capitalization now totals more than $765 billion, more than double the $374 billion market cap of No. 2 Exxon Mobil, the oil and gas giant, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The last time No. 1 was at least twice as big as No. 2 at the end of a year was in 1985, when International Business Machines more than doubled Exxon, Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for S&P Indices, told the paper.

Apple's market cap is more than 10 times the total of IBM 30 years ago. The tech star passed up Exxon four years ago.

Apple shares have returned a whopping 80 percent over the last year, and the party is hardly over, says Jack Hough of Barron's.

"Look for the stock price to rise to $160 over the next year for a 25 percent return including dividends," he writes.

"Expect a big dividend hike when the company updates its capital-return program, likely in April. The current yield looks undersized at 1.5 percent."

Apple shares closed at $133 Monday.

So what's going to push Apple higher?

• "First, it sits on cash and investments worth $30 a share, up from $18 a share back in September 2012. Net of this cash, the shares are cheaper than they appear," Hough says.
• "Second, Apple’s earnings are unusually clean. Management doesn’t point investors toward a spiffed-up measure of earnings that excludes things like the cost of issuing stock to employees, as many big tech firms do.
• "Third, Apple’s free-cash generation—what matters in the long run for paying dividends, buying back shares, and investing in new gadgets and services—easily exceeds its earnings.

Citi analyst Jim Suva also sees Apple only going higher. Apple can become more profitable as consumers “permanently shift their preference to higher memory in their smartphone despite the higher costs,” writes Suva, according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, S&P Capital IQ Equity Analyst Scott Kessler has a "hold" rating on Apple stock. He mostly offers praise for the company, but says, "our 12-month target price of $125 reflects comparisons with calendar year 2015 P/E and P/E-to-growth multiples of the S&P 1500 Technology sector."

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