Apple Becomes First Company to Hit $3T Market Value
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I wonder how much of this is due to the value of the dollar decreasing rather than the value of Apple increasing?
USD vs the pound: 1:0.78 -> 1:0.74 = down 5%
USD vs Yuan: 1:6.86 -> 1:6.36 = down 7%
USD vs Euro: 1:0.86 -> 1:0.89 = up 3%
USD vs CAD: 1:1.31 -> 1:1.28 = down 2.5%
For inflation all these countries are targeting 2% annual inflation, so around 6-7% total inflation.
So the most pessimistic view would seem to be USD vs Yuan and 7% from inflation, so maybe 14% comes from changes in "value"?
Anyway, that's "only" ~$400 million :D
I like quotes like this. Apple, for all their endless praise, is still a black box. We quite literally have no idea what they're worth, because they won't tell us. It only begs the question why, which, well...
> “Apple could have gone and used that money to do all sorts of things. Instead, they’re using it to boost their stock price,” said William Lazonick
As to your claim: We know exactly how much they're worth. Those quarterly results they issue are required to be accurate, and tell you exactly how many assets they have and exactly how much debt they have.
The problem is at this point the value of shares on the stock market is detached from the underlying asset/debt ratio, and is instead based on traders beliefs about how other traders will behave. This is most apparent on for stock in companies that don't return cash, so the shares themselves don't produce a return until they're sold.
OTOH I just have standard 401k style investment accounts so what do I know? :D
I don't think they are using that money to "only" boost their stock