by , 9:45 AM EST, December 7th, 2007

Apple's stock inched back up over US$190 on Thursday to close at $190.54. The company's stock dipped back down to around $189 in after hours trading, but managed to climb back up over $190 again in regular Friday trading.

The Cupertino company's stock has been on a general upswing, but started climbing faster after analysts began reporting that the Mac and iPod would lead strong holiday sales.

Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff commented "We continue to see Apple well positioned for the holidays given the confluence of product cycles for Mac and iPod."

Shaw Wu of American Technology Research is predicting iPod sales will come in above Wall Street estimates because of strong consumer demand. "We are raising our iPod unit forecast to 25 million from 24 million versus the consensus of about 23.2 million," he said.

Apple's market cap is reflecting analyst views, too. The Mac and iPod maker is currently sitting at $166.77 billion, above IBM's $149.27 billion market cap, and substantially above PC maker Dell's $54.85 billion.

Apple is currently trading at $190.48, up 0.53 (0.28%).