“Carl Icahn’s forecast for Apple Inc. (AAPL) would swell the world’s biggest market capitalization beyond the economy of Argentina to heights never seen in public markets,” Callie Bost, Eric Lam and Lu Wang report for Bloomberg.
“The billionaire activist says Apple should trade at $203, twice its current price, an estimate that would push it to $1.2 trillion,” Bost, Lam, and Wang report. “Boosting Apple’s price-earnings ratio to match the average in the Nasdaq 100 Index would send its stock to $147 and its value to $880 billion. Going by history, it’s another story. Only one company has ever topped $1 trillion, PetroChina (601857) Co., which tripled after its November 2007 debut in Shanghai. The 13-digit sojourn lasted exactly one day.”
“In his letter, Icahn said Apple products including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch will help accelerate earnings growth. The recently introduced iPhone 6 positions the company to take market share from Google Inc.’s Android, he said,” Bost, Lam, and Wang report. “Apple has consistently defied skeptics. Its shares lost half their value in 1993 and posted annual losses averaging 30 percent between 1995 and 1997 as concern mounted about the popularity of its personal computers. Adjusted for splits the stock fell below 50 cents in 1997. It’s risen in 13 of the 16 subsequent years, including rallies exceeding 100 percent in six of those.”
Read more in the full article here.
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