“Apple is back on top,” Vito J. Racanelli reports for Barron’s. “Last year, Berkshire Hathaway knocked Apple out of the No. 1 spot in Barron’s annual ranking of the world’s most respected companies. But the iEverything maker has reclaimed the throne with a flourish in 2014, its winning score leaving No. 2 Berkshire and others a blur in the rearview mirror.”
“Apple’s comeback from third place last year tracks a similar revival in the company’s shares, which lost almost half of their value in a seven-month span that ended in the spring of 2013,” Racanelli reports. “The stock has since gained more than 60%, to a split-adjusted $90. Cupertino, Calif.–based Apple, whose iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers have enhanced the lives of billions in the developed world, has ranked No. 1 in our survey in four of the past five years.”
“Investors’ respect for corporations doesn’t derive only from operating metrics such as continually improving earnings. In Apple’s case, recent shareholder-friendly moves including a dividend hike, stock buybacks, and a 7-for-1 stock split impressed our survey respondents, a cross-section of U.S. money managers,” Racanelli reports. “Personal experience probably plays a role, too, in judging prominent consumer companies, such as Apple and Google, which held steady at No. 4.”
Read more in the full article here.
Maybe all the Heinz workers being terminated affected Berkshire Hathaway ranking!
And in other news here’s an update on Rolf Harris, top of the list of Anustralia’s most respected and valued cultural icon, a pillar of what that that country represents.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11285042
And they elected Tony Abbott as their best leader. It’s really no wonder most of the worlds analists originate from Anustralia.
Get a grip, the pair of you! And stay on topic too, if you can manage that.