“Apple can’t grow like this forever. No company can,” Jeff Sommer reports for The New York Times. “Apple’s market capitalization — the value of all of the shares of its stock — is more than $758 billion, greater than any other company’s. Yet the Wall Street consensus is that Apple is still having a growth spurt. In fact, if Apple’s watches, phones, laptops and other gadgets and services keep generating favorable publicity — and if its quarterly earnings report on Monday is as strong as the market expects it to be — there’s a reasonable chance that Apple’s value will keep swelling. Not far down the road, it might even reach the $1 trillion level that some hedge funds predict.”
“But even if Apple still has some room to run, there are some early warning signs,” Sommer reports. “After all, the company has already crossed a significant threshold. In February, it grew to twice the size of the next biggest company in the S.&P. 500, a rare feat of financial dominance, and one that hasn’t happened since Ronald Reagan was president.”
“Now it’s Apple’s world. Apple is the most widely held stock in American mutual fund portfolios. IBM, the former undisputed heavyweight champion, isn’t even in the running anymore,” Sommer reports. “It ranks 62nd, according to a Morningstar analysis performed at my request. IBM is still an important company, but it is struggling. Investors judge it to be worth less than one-quarter of Apple’s market value today. What happened to IBM — how it became this small, in comparison with Apple — is worth remembering… Rapid growth, after all, isn’t a sure thing, especially when you’re already the biggest company in the world. IBM has proved that. Sooner or later, Apple investors will have to take that lesson to heart.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nothing lasts forever, but Apple certainly isn’t IBM. What happened to IBM was allowed to happen by myopic, unfocused management. We simply do not see that with Apple currently. If anything, Apple is slamming the pedal to the metal. Jeff and the rest of the haters/doubters: You haven’t seen anything, yet!