“Now that Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) market value has exceeded $500 billion, the biggest challenge for the maker of iPhones and iPad tablet computers may be staying there,” David Wilson reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple is the sixth U.S. company that has ever crossed the threshold, according to data compiled by Standard & Poor’s,” Wilson reports. “The others are Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), General Electric Co. (GE), Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), Intel Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), in chronological order.”
Wilson reports, “All five companies were below $500 billion a year after reaching that pinnacle, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. GE was the only one to surpass that value afterward. ‘Getting there is hard,’ Howard Silverblatt, a New York-based senior index analyst at S&P, wrote yesterday in an e-mail. ‘Staying there is harder.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: One big difference: All of the others were riding bubbles. Only Apple did it in the face of a worldwide recession.
Another big difference is the massive headroom Apple has for growth in personal computers, tablets, smartphones, and future markets (Apple TV/iTV).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Aaron” for the heads up.]
About a quarter of the half-trillion+ value is in “cash” (and equivalents). With zero debt. That’s another major difference.
What about NFC and the bank of Apple? That could be big.
I like the Apple bank idea. Always have. Apple could revolutionize the banking industry. That would be the biggest game changer ever. Maybe when NFC comes along they’ll spring the IBank on the world. No transaction fees, low interest.
heh-heh. The mind boggles with the possibility of ” iBank. ” Then as time passes we’ll have iBank 2, then iBank 2S, then iBank Pro…
What all short sighted ANALyst fail to see is that Microsoft was there when the economy was in their best moment and also Microsoft was on 97% of the machines around the world (Home users and enterprise) Apple’s products are at best in 25 % so it has a lot, a lot more to grown. As it is said, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Microsoft, General Electric, Cisco, Intel and Exxon all got up there is because they control the market in their respective fields and they were riding on the crest of bubbles.
Apple got there with small market shares and most interesting of all it was in a long recessionary period.
Apple products are bought by people and companies around the world. When the world economy crashes due to all the major governments spending about 40-80 % more than they take in, in addition to the massive debt already accumulated, then people and companies won’t be able to buy as many Apple products as they want, because all their available money will be directed toward food, fuel and survival. Our government officials are steering our country toward a massive crisis. That is the only real imminent that to Apple’s success. But this is a huge and very immediate threat. Look at Europe and the weekly survival strategies they concoct. And look at our Leader and the intensity with which he is spending us into oblivion. This will bring Apple’s stock down. Sadly.
Kent. You’re correct – double sadly.
Jean, why is it that you always follow up AFTER Kent and AFTER he turns an MDN story into a whiney, predictable political rant?
Are you one and the same? A sort of EVE white and EVE black?
Pathetic
Buster,
Why is it when I make an obvious and basic point which is true, and the lovely and intelligent Jean concurs, you whine like a baby? If you have the equipment to make a rational counter argument do so. But your adolescent crying is pathetic. Maybe you should grow a pair and make some manly points. Jean might compliment you.
Jean is merely a shill for you (assuming she is a different person and not you in drag).
Last I look, the US economy is picking up and indicators are looking good. Also, the papers indicate that the American economy is where Obama picked it up when he took office. Not bad considering the recession he had to deal with.
In summary, you can no longer blame him about state of the economy being worse under his leadership.
BTW, you wouldn’t know what a pair is Jean/Kent.
Buster,
If you think the economy is where it was when Obama started you not only don’t have a pair you don’t have a brain. The annual deficit is 7 times what he inherited. Unumployment was at about 7%, it is now at 9%. The housing market is dead. 75% of Nevada home mortgages are underwater now; similar but slightly lower number in most other states. He has implemented a health care mandate that 75% of the citizens do not want and the Congress did not read before it was passed. He has presided over more wars than his predecessor. Basically, he is destroying the country, which is his goal.
hahah, @buster that was hilarious!
i think jean is his cats name 😀
Buster the budget deficit and worse the debt is a major catechism heading towards the USA titanic in the form of a massive tidal wave of baby boomers retiring and expecting social security and bankrupting the country even further.
This is not Obamas problem alone but spending us into oblivion on top of the existing debt was about the worst thing he could have done and very likely could have unimaginably bad and irrecoverable consequences.
Bush was not perfect here either, but last I checked he’s not president now and Obama is. No one is taking responsibility or taking sensible actions to prevent this catastrophe and we may no longer be able to prevent it.
You are so ridiculously wrong it hurts! What are you going to do when your doomsday scenario doesn’t come true?
So you think spending trillions more than you have is sustainable? Please provide some examples of successful societies that spent double what they took in over decades and thrived. Our country’s past success has been based on having an economy based on private initiative, individual liberty, free enterprise, rule of law (sanctity of contracts like Apple expects in the area of IP), and the Constitution. All these pillars are being destroyed by the Obama administration. Most of the private sector is in deep trouble right now. Apple will be shortly when the Obama “chickens come home to roost”.
…and you think our economy isn’t strong enough to turn around? Which it is doing as we speak. Our country’s future success will be based on exactly the things that made it great in the past, because the Democrats have exactly the same incentives to make it that anybody else does. They live here too.
NONE of the so called “pillars” you mention are not going to be destroyed but will be working pretty much as they have in the past, because the Obama Administration isn’t doing any such thing. A majority of the policies the Dems are pushing now were REPUBLICAN policies just a damn year ago. Are your sides’ ideas so bad they won’t stand the test of time?
The only reason the Republicans are pushing social issues today is because their hope of winning on economic issues has gone down the toilet now that things are doing better.
Apple has been doing quite well throughout this entire period, growing sales figures and setting record quarterly profits even as the general computer market has been shrinking.
That’s no accident.
The economy is turning around? And Dell is ready to buy Apple. Unemployment is around 18% when you count the people who have given up looking. Inflation is around 8% with as prices more than double 3 years ago. Food prices are going up sharply. The GOVT spends 40% of every dollar using borrowed money. The annual deficit is roughly 6 times what it was when Obama took office. Housing prices are still declining. Senior citizens get ZERO interest on savings accounts. And they have had no cost of living increases in several years. And now Georgetown University Law School female students cannot even afford to buy their own birth control and insist that the general population pay for their sex. MF Global, a 250 year old financial firm run by Jon Corzine, former Democrat NJ Governor and Senator, just went bankrupt after illegally stealing over $1 billion in client cash accounts (not investments) and nobody has even been charged, of course, since Corzine is a buddy of Obama. GM makes Chevy Volts that cost about $250k to make with all the taxpayer subsidies, then they use tax dollars to advertise these incredibly stupid coal powered cars which no sane person wants. Only GE buys them. And Hollywood actors. Shopping malls are boarded up around the country. Most of the “green industry” subsidized with tens or hundreds of billions of ax dollars are now broke or going broke and closing down. Fannie Mae just demanded another 5 to 10 billion dollars to cover the most recent losses through stupid GOVT mandated mortgages. The Federal Reserve props up the stock market by creating money out of thin air as foreign buyers of US debt are refusing to buy all the bonds needed to pay for the insane GOVT spending. Jobs for young people are truly hard to find. And you say the economy is improving. Not because of evidence, but purely because you voted for the moron who is intentionally destroying our free market economy, because he does not like it. And he has stated this. When you vote Marxists into office do not expect economic growth. Expect misery. That is the sole product of socialist centralized economies.
Kent, you make some good points but please try using some paragraphs. Your posts read like some long beatnik rant poem.
Please, Kent, if you are going to rant on this forum, at least make an attempt to use real information. Fabricated numbers undermine your argument and make everything that you say suspect.
This is patently untrue, as you would know if you bothered to research rather than fabricate. While it is unfortunately true that the annual deficit has increased substantially during the financial and economic crisis, the annual deficit has less than doubled since 2008 – nowhere close to “roughly six times.” In fact, the annual deficit was never less than $500B since 2003, and reached over $1T in 2008.
I despise deficit spending. I am very conservative with respect to my personal finances, and I believe that the government needs to act in a similar fashion. Both political parties have failed this nation in terms of deficit control. Your inability to admit that is distressing, and your willingness to spread disinformation is inexcusable.
Check your facts before you post if you expect anyone to give serious though to your ideas.
Kent – you point out the fallacy of your own argument. The US government is NOT following the weekly survival strategies being concocted in Europe. Europe is following the “austerity first” approach – which almost every non partisan economist in the western world agrees will prolong – and deepen – a recession. Despite the party of “no”‘s best efforts, Obama has been reasonably successful at stimulating the US economy. Hence the US economy is growing, while most in Europe are contracting. Why US employment is growing, while it is stagnant or falling in Europe. That is why this country has an opportunity to recover much faster than Europe, and why Apple’s stock will not be as harmed as you predict.
The US GOVT under Obama is following a policy of substantially increased government spending as a strategy to deal with the economic recession and excessive debt. More spending to fight excessive debt. More money taken out of the private sector to help “stimulate” the private sector. This Keynesian approach is exactly what Japan and Europe have been doing for the past 20 years. Japan’s stock market is 25% of what it was 20 years ago. Europe has given up Keynesian spending to a degree because their debt is so high there is nothing left to spend. Greece’s debt to GDP ratio is only marginally higher than ours. But we have a Fed which prints money and they don’t. If borrowing was such a brilliant strategy to overcome economic downturns then Dell should simply borrow more than it can ever pay back and their stock will rebound. In the real world lying and malfeasance gets you in jail. In goverenment lying is the cynical way to get office. “I will give you free health care.”. “I will take care of your mortgage.”. “I will buy your food and give you free cell phones.”. About 50 % of our country now is so lazy and stupid they believe somebody else should be forced to pay for their basic needs. This is not only not sustainable, it is immoral. It is making slaves of the poor saps who still work for a living and pay their own way and now also have to pay the way of the indolent parasites who like your idea of governement spending to pay for all their needs and desires.
Kent,
Finally someone on here who understands economics. Very well said, unrefutable, really. Well other than the chap who said we could spend our way out of a spending problem. 🙂
So wrong I don’t know where to start.
Obama inherited not just a recession, but the second great depression. Apple is the single greatest economic engine to power the world through this crisis.
Not sure but I think MSFT had the highest ever market cap at 650 Billion. Anybody know for sure. Apple will take that out soon on it’s way to another record. The 1st Trillion dollar market cap shortly after ITV is released.
And, inflation-adjusted that supposed $650B is worth about $800B today, so Apple has to pass that benchmark to be tops. I think 12 to 15 months should do it.
Price of stock is irrelevant.
The value of Apple is the effort that they place into their products.
Beat me to it! Well said.
Well said. That is first and foremost for Apple. Just focus on keeping the consumers happy and Apple will be rewarded with their loyalty. I hope.
MDN’s take says it all.
Apple is a bubble stock. It does not mean that there is no money to be made, just be careful.
My long term bets are on Exxon. There is an energy crisis coming.
They may not be the first trillion dollar cap but when the energy squeeze really hits they’ll be taking everyone’s ass to the bank.
I doubt it. Even Kent will be screaming to nationalize them when they start charging $10 a gallon. And nationalized they will be… Or else just burnt to the ground by the mobs.
@ Kent
Your rants may or may not contain truth, but ..
TL;DR
Google it.
Sorryntha tweeting has reduced your brain power.
Kent – you bore me with your ignorant rants. Obviously, regurgitating the ignorant thoughts of others. Clearly incapable of original thought. But that comes with lower IQs. Please, do us all a favor and refrain from speaking and procreating.
Almost forgot … please refrain from responding. I don’t want to waste my time having to read your mundane retorts.
Almost forgot … please refrain from responding, don’t want to have to waste my time reading your mundane retorts.
Kent – Don’t usually repeat myself, but I thought it might be best in order for it to sink into your thick, dull skull.
@steve. brilliant refutation. not!!!
why did you even join the conversation? 4 posts and not 1 intelligent thought. typical mob response. you must either be a columbia or a berkeley alumnus, or wannabe.
@Kent. Some people can’t/won’t listen or believe; they prefer blood cells over grey cells. if you’re sill here after ‘the deal goes down’ – i
sincerely hope you’re not – people like steve will need balm rather than ‘I-told-you-so.’
I love Apple but an Apple bank, with their high margins no thanks.