Crazy thing - Apple's market cap is something like $110bn, right? That, essentially, is how much the stock market believes Apple as a company is worth. Yet Apple has something like $100bn in the bank. In cash, effectively. So essentially according to the stock market everything else - all the patents, all the research, all the 'brand loyalty', all the shops, all the staff, everything else, is worth less than $10b. Which, in stock market terms for a multinational company, is peanuts. And they made $6bn in profit in the last three months of last year alone.

Regardless of all of those numbers being completely ludicrous, it suggests to me that if anything Apple is undervalued on the stock market. Unless they do something utterly [LIFTED] insane (or someone else does something which is genuinely a piece of genius) they're going to still end up with more money than they know what to do with.

Jon

er the last i looked Apples market cap was $559 billion.
With Apple now paying dividends is this the board coming out of the Jobs era?

Steve will be iTurning in his grave.

About time. I always thought it wrong that the held all that money and didn't give any of it to the people that own the company.

Their attitude always previously was that the shareholder benefit was in the increasing value of their investment, which is pretty significant. Guy on the radio this morning said that if you'd taken the $300 the iPod cost on the day it launched and spent that on Apple shares instead, those shares would now be worth over $24,000. $11 a year in dividends doesn't get anywhere near that profit.

Jon

Doesn't help though if you are investing for income...

My grandparents invested for dividends, the daily share price was pretty much irrelevant, they wanted to live off of the income from the shares - which they did very successfully for about 20 years.

So? Apple as a matter of corporate policy up until this week did not pay dividends. Why, if you're investing to get dividends, would you buy shares in a company with a long standing corporate policy of not paying dividends?


As far as I'm aware it isn't compulsory to buy Apple shares. Other shares are also available.

I find it rather... bizarre. Up until quite recently, Apple just didn't pay dividends. Haven't for 17 years. Seventeen years. Yet people bought Apple shares knowing they haven't paid any dividends for years and years and then complained because they didn't pay dividends! wtf?

Jon

The bottom line is that receiving a dividend regularly or company keeping the cash (and this being reflected in higher share price) doesn't have any effect on your net worth (other things being equal).

However common sense would suggest that getting a dividend in this specific case is better simply because Apple holding cash in the bank investors can replicate easily (by putting money/dividend in the bank themselves). However investor might have different invest. opportunities (e.g. buying shares in other companies, repaying a mortgage, investing in a different currency assets) which might bring him a better return (than holding cash which is what apple is doing with investors' money).

I am going to be very frank: you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. In this thread you are out of your depht so no wonder you are finding things bizzare...

I'll be frank. I wish I'd invested in some Apple shares when they were in double figures.

Or even when they went into triple figures, but I didn't think they'd go much higher!

I frequently regret spending my student loan on food and shelter. I seriously thought about it at the time, ploughing the loan into Apple shares. It was the time of Apple flirting with Jean Louis Gassée and Michael Dell's infamous pronunciation.
If I'd been cold and hungry then, I'd be a great deal richer now.

I was just pointing out, not everybody buys shares for the resale value of the shares, they buy for the income those shares can generate over time.

If I have Apple shares, I need to sell a couple of hundred every year, in order to have an income. With most other shares, I get from a few pence to a few quid per share per year income. For many people, that is more important.

I'm not saying Apple's way is good or bad, just not what I would be looking for in a stock.