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Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History
derekmead writes "Apple, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Microsoft, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Apple has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Exxon-Mobil for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."
Issac Newton knew a thing or two about apples. What goes up must come down.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Everything in the piece is a fact. There is no commentary on why this might be good or bad.
If you actually read right to the end of the article, it states that adjusted for inflation, Microsoft is still over $850 billion. So while Apple is a gigantic company, it hasn't broken any records.
DISCLAIMER: I'm neither a PaidMicrosoftShill(tm) nor affected by the Apple Reality Distortion Field(tm)
I'm going to have to say no.
Based in 2012 dollars, Microsoft's 1999 value of $619 billion would be equivalent to $851 billion today. Apple still has quite a ways to go.
Let's compare meaningful value.
If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
I'm thinking maybe the metric being invoked here is inadequate to describe the two companies relative importance and thus their ultimate value.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
Mass riots of Fanboys would commence and might be worse then running out of gas.
What would be the value of the British east india company in today's dollars?
Apple is replaying their history during 90s.
It's eerie, really. Soon after Macs began its success, MS sold their graphical OS through just about all hardware makers, Apple sued and lost, and Jobs's got ousted, and Apple shriveled up. Just replace "ousted" with "died" and MS/Windows with Google/Android.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
http://www.sqlite.org/apple-and-sqlite.gif ;-)
If Microsoft stops supporting Windows, Office, and other software tomorrow; Business IT structure would probably collapse.
Facebook, a nothing income company that hasn't even found a working business model: IPO for 100 billion. Apple, a maker of expensive shiny trinkets, the largest market cap on the street. Benjamin Graham would have a lot to say about times like these. I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one. But go on chumps, keep buying into the bubble. It's going to go up forever and we'll all be rich!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Let's not confuse what a company is worth with what a company costs.
If the major oil players stopped production cold, you wouldn't have so much of a "brief period of instability" as say, "mass societal collapse and widespread starvation".
Whether Exxon by itself would be enough to trigger a collapse is a good question, but I'd say the consequences there would still be somewhat worse than a "brief period of instability".
Several things.
1. It would NOT collapse. All those computers would not suddenly stop working.
2. Only business IT structure that is build on Microsoft would even need to be concerned.
Okay, I'll take back #1. Okay, maybe you're right. It would collapse. Without Windows updates, just how many weeks could an IT infrastructure go before it would be hopelessly compromised beyond all possibility of repair.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Let's compare meaningful value.
If Apple stops pumping iPods, iPhones and iPads tomorrow, what's the worst that will happen?
If Exxon-Mobil stops pumping out oil and refining gas, diesel and jet fuel, what's the worst that will happen?
I think option #2 is best, I can live in an iMicrocosm, as long as I get clean air and water to breathe and drink.
If Exxon stopped pumping oil, instead of a truck delivering your iPhone, it would be carried on the back of a Unicorn and floated gently down a rainbow to your doorstep.
:wq
It was such a terrible comparison, given that there is a great comparison for companies when comparing GDP; and it isn't their market cap:
I really fail to see how iPhones, iTunes, and iPads are worth even remotely close to that number. Every one of those products are replaceable. Most become obsolete in a year. This could be the biggest bubble in corporate history. At least Microsoft had a monopoly when they reached that level. In fact, that is the only thing that kept them afloat (Windows OS).
And I don't dismiss that Google is in the same boat. A new technology could quickly wipe out 90% of their value in a year.
Except the main premise: Apple is the most valuable company in history.
If you decide that stock value is the true valuation of a buisness, even though that would be totally incorrect...
and you decided that US Dollars, not adjusted for inflation...
Then I suppose you could make this claim.
But what is Apples value to the world compared to, lets say walmart? If apple and all its products vanished off the face of the earth right now... would it really cause a problem? If walmart closed all of its stores for just a month or 2... we'd actually have food shortages in many rural areas almost immediately. People would lose their homes due to the lack of a paycheck. Many smaller local business buy their inventories from walmart. Suppliers in China and India would have to lay off workers. Many people wouldn't be able to get prescriptions. Bug spray, insecticides, etc... could lead to increases in west nile and other disease. Literally 3 of the 4 horsemen... it's kind of funny really.
So you believe Market-Cap as a metric is unabashedly pro-apple? Got it, I guess.
I've always thought market cap was an incredibly bad metric for measuring a company.
Just because a couple of fools are willing to pay an inflated price for a share on a particular day shouldn't mean that you can extrapolate to say the entire company is worth that much times the number of shares.
In fact, one look at the market depth for any company is proof enough that most people aren't willing to pay top price, and correspondingly, that the company's worth shouldn't be so directly related to the share price.
But banks tend to be willing to lend money to companies based on their market cap, so what would I know: I'm not an economist.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
The thing about trends is they never end, until they do. Just because some people were wrong about Apple years ago, doesn't mean they're wrong about Apple today.
Apple may be extraordinarily successful, but its success is based upon a product line that is:
1. Almost entirely consumer driven, and
2. Incredibly undiversified.
That's an incredibly risky strategy. Most companies build successful long-term business by establishing well diversified product lines, or by building product lines and business relationships that establish long-term cash flow. Apple's bet their success on their ability to stay cooler than the competition. So what's a more likely scenario for 2022: that the world is still addicted to Exxon's oil, or that the iPhone 10 is still the hottest product on the market?
Here's Wikipedia's list of sovereign states. It lists 206, and separates them out nicely based on claims made against their sovereignty and the like. There are 203 sovereign states that are recognized by at least one UN member state, 2 that are only recognized by non-UN states but that have declared their independence and control some territory, and 1 that has declared its independence but is not recognized by anyone at all, despite controlling some territory.
"True" and "misleading" are not mutually exclusive. Apple may have the current highest market cap, but its only a record high if you do it in "dollars of the day"-- that is, Apples market cap today in todays dollars, and Microsofts 1999 market cap in 1999 dollars. It also tries to conflate "market cap" with "value" when the two are not even CLOSE to synonymous-- whats Facebook's market cap now, and what was it 2 months ago? Did the company start producing more or less, or could it be that "market cap" is simply the result of speculation, and not an actual measure of a company's long term value?
If my car runs out of gas, I'll have to ride my bicycle to work, but at least I can still listen to my music on the way with my trusty iPod. And as an added bonus, no war between China and Japan.
Have fun procuring some arable land to grow your own veggies and raise your own cattle.
Except for their 50,000 US employees. And the $4 billion a year the iOS app store sends out to independent developers, mostly in the US. And all those music industry people who make money from selling music on iTunes. There's a study that says Apple actually supports about 300,000 jobs in the US.
Yes, they support a lot of manufacturing jobs overseas, but it's pretty silly to say they contribute little to the US economy.
Apple's P/E ratio is only 15.64. They're greatly undervalued.
I'm not sure how you can say that they are greatly undervalued. Any P/E over 17 is considered overvalued, and a P/E in the range of 10-17 is considered fair value.
So I would say that a P/E of 15.64 is on the high side of being fairly valued, but certainly not greatly undervalued. Greatly undervalued would be if their P/E was below 10.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Apple conducted a study on this.
Among people who wanted to buy an iPhone and choose Android instead:
Conversely JD Power and associates did the opposite survey and found the number one reason people choose Apple was battery life. An area where they are only beaten by 1 RIM model as a matter of fact.
#2 reason was Apple's high level of customer service after point of sale
#3 better integration
#4 singular vision
#5 better sales staff (I'm assuming they mean Apple stores as contrasted with regular carrier based stores)
#6 innovation
I read those and they seem mostly true in both directions. I don't personally agree with the "latest and greatest" and "technology" arguments on Android but I can see where Android customers might view Apple as too conservative.