“Apple Inc.’s stock has gotten a bad rap since Tim Cook became the boss,” Tomi Kilgore writes for MarketWatch. “Steve Jobs was a very tough act to follow. But a closer look suggests investors should be celebrating Cook’s five-year anniversary as chief executive, as he has successfully guided the technology giant — the ‘blue chip’ technology giant, no less — to become the most valuable U.S. company by market capitalization.”
“The only reason to deride that performance is if it is compared with what Jobs accomplished in the 14 years he was CEO,” Kilgore writes. “During that time, he was able to move Apple from being the 459th most valuable S&P 500 company, with a market cap of just under $1.7 billion at the end of 1997, according to data provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices, to second place, with market cap increasing by more than 200 times.”
“Everything is relative. Investors may have had to endure a turbulent ride since Cook became CEO, but it is hard to argue with being No. 1,” Kilgore writes. “Happy anniversary, Tim Cook.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs was an impossible act to follow – as nobody knows as well as Cook.
Happy anniversary, Tim!
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s Tim Cook reaped $373 million in stock in 60 months as CEO – August 25, 2016
Tim Cook set to receive over $100 million on 5th anniversary as Apple CEO – August 24, 2016
Apple stock has always had a bad rap. For no good reason, it just has based on the perceptions of a very few people.
I admired Cook for his defense of the Fourth Amendment vis a vis iOS encryption…but his public endorsement of and financial contributions to Hillary Merkel & The Globalist agenda assures me that that admiration was miscast and Apple’s privacy stance is transient illusory facade.
Amazing how much you post here, snookums.
You must be a great one-handed typist, considering you jerk off 24/7.
xoxoxoxo ❤️❤️❤️
I do understand your concerns. I hope you understand that, as a businessman, Tim Cook is taking a pragmatic approach to regional politics. Setting ethics aside, he has dealt with the Punjabs of India and the Mandarins of China on their own imperious terms, which can be translated as bribery or quid pro quo. The same with Paul Ryan and Hillary Clinton. There is tribute to be paid in every quarter, and he is facing up to it all. I don’t expect morality or consistency from any politician, lawyer, or businessman. I expect them only
to do their jobs, which is to enrich or defend me.
I do’t think you realize what is at stake in the election.
Rinse & Repeat MacDoofus strikes again right on schedule. Shut the hell up you broken record. We heard you the first 1537 times. Offer up something new besides the usual bovine waste matter material. Or just stay in your play pen junior.
It is astounding how utterly idiotic you are, taking lamebraininess to new heights. Logic never figures into any of your inane reasoning. How do you draw your conclusions except from the fecal matter in a public toilet? You are obsessed with all things gay when there IS no preoccupation with it except by adolescent that is YOU.
You also conveniently forget Apple is still the Number One company in the world. Investors look for different things in a company and sometimes making money, which Apple does in spades, obviously is not enough. And growth is going to ebb and flow. Apple is also an emotional stock and I do believe there’s a fair amount of schadenfreude attached to it by them, and from you.
Peter, your definition of Number One may be different that other peoples’. Strictly from a financial perspective, AAPL has underperformed the NASDAQ since Cook dramatically slowed product development, then being rewarded with obscene compensation.
Apple may be camping on a lot of cash, but it isn’t offering investors the best rate of return, nor the best products across the board, nor the stock value increase that Apple can, and did, up until recently. The problem is distracted leadership. You are one of the few people who rally to an underperforming leader’s defense, but you simply don’t have any evidence to show that Apple is performing as well as it used to do when it was a much smaller, less rich but more in-touch company.
As you and I both are heavy Mac users, please tell us where your optimism stems from. How can you be satisfied with Apple’s recent decision to screw you over with zero updates or worse, degraded replacements for products that used to be very competitive in the market. Complacency comes before the fall, Peter.
It’s just that all this Apple bashing is occurring before a new product cycle. I just don’t see the point of jumping around making bold declarations when we don’t really know what’s going on behind Apple’s doors. Level headed criticisms and concerns are fine on an adult level (but Mac here is decidedly too immature to post with a modicum of self control and clarity of an intelligent statement).
Well we can’t very well criticize Tim Cook on the future now can we? Concerns about the present and past are fine but no company maintains a straight upward line forever, there are inevitable bumps and dips as there were with Steve Jobs. It’s cyclical. So I suppose it’s the disingenuousness and convenient forgetfulness of history that rankles me. I’m not ready to throw Tim Cook under the bus though I am unhappy with the state of the Mac Pro. Too many of the clueless here are all too ready to do just that (tech bloodsport) even though they couldn’t run a McDonalds. Everybody thinks they’re an “expert.” In another year I may be ready to excoriate on Tim too but for the moment there are too many variables and extenuating circumstances to jump to such drastic conclusions. Plus new product upgrades looming.
I am not expecting major new paradigm busting devices except an Apple Car in a few years. Really what’s left to create in the consumer space? Home Kit stuff? Medical? All of that will be great but probably not as great a money maker. Seems like services will loom larger now and in the future.
Funny you mention “underperforming leader” – as compared to what? It’s own potential maybe but Tim Cook’s CEO run is the envy of the tech industry most other CEO’s can only dream about.
I am not remotely complacent, I think many do protest too much though, just for sport. To me the only one’s who have a true right to complain are the professionals – their neglect is the most tangible. Most other consumer uses for their devices and Macs are well within the expectations and everyday use needs of most mortals. Still can Apple do better? Can Apple make Macs that would better benefit Enterprise? Should Apple upgrade it’s line of Macs and devices whenever possible? How about a dedicated 5K monitor for Pro’s? Upgraded quad processor Mac Mini’s? Sure. But my work with what I’ve got continues unabated. But I am running up against a wall relatively soon.
Anyway appreciate the more toned down post, even though we often do not agree.
Actually, this “Apple bashing” has been going on for a while. Apple is being “bashed” because it deserves it. It makes a laptop with a single port, solders in the RAM on many of its computers, uses two-year old CPUs, uses a proprietary NVMe interface while charging a fortune for Solid State Drive Configure-to-Order upgrades, and releases operating systems before they’re ready. And let’s not forget the iPhone 7, which will ship without a headphone jack. We’re just trying to be as objective as possible instead of just defending every bad decision Apple makes.
Well then “bashing” is just the cost of doing business. There will always be those who would prefer the status quo, probably the most famous example being floppy drives.
Even Wall Street thinks Microsoft is a better investment than Apple. Look how much higher Microsoft’s P/E is and a couple of years back everyone was wondering if Microsoft would recover from declining Windows revenue. Over the last year every major tech company outperformed Apple in share price growth.
Also, Apple has the lowest institutional ownership percentage of major tech stocks by a huge margin. It’s lower now than ever at 58%. Compare to other tech companies:
(Apple – 58%)
Alphabet – 82%
Microsoft – 73%
Amazon – 67%
Facebook – 72%
Yahoo – 76%
Cisco – 77%
HPE – 83%
All this shows is just how sucky Apple is to the big investors. Why is that? Poor growth prospects. I think the finger points squarely at Tim Cook and Wall Street’s lack of confidence in the man. They think he’s on par with Steve Ballmer and that means loser status.
I feel Apple could easily build the best products in the world with all the wealth it has and have no need to let products stagnate longer than competitors’ products. I truly believe Apple is more interested in maximizing profits more than anything else. Even so, that’s not helping the share price one bit. Profits seem to come in third after growth and market share as far as Wall Street is concerned.
Apple ISN’T trying to maximize profits more than anything else, as you claim you truly believe. If they were, we both know they would be doing things other than what they are doing now. They are clearly NOT trying to maximize share price either. Their stated priority is to build the best products available, but no one including you seems to believe it. That leaves blithering incompetence. Ah, now that jibes nicely with all the negative commentary; that’s our way of understanding why they do what they do—and why we can’t lay off giving them advice. — That’s rich, you know — the wayward son comes home, having made two billion dollars, and we reproach him by saying it ought to have been more, if only you’d minded our words. Bah!
Low P/E. Low institutional ownership.
Sounds like a perfect stock to buy.
What the hell are you talking about????????
Tim Cook has doubled the stock price in FIVE years and given tens of Billions of dollars to stock owners. That is AMAZING!
He is worlds best CEO in the human history.
“Especially for someone tasked with running the largest technology company in the world.”
Exactly. We can thank Tim Cook making Apple the BIGGEST one. When he was the COO he created the Apple Production System and created the ground for Apple to begame what it is. His leadership is the what we want and need.