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Interesting insight, Apple's market cap is $600 B while it has ~$250 B cash/equivalent. So net of all their businesses valuation is more like $400 Billion? Les

by abhi3 11y ago

Interesting insight, Apple's market cap is $600 B while it has ~$250 B cash/equivalent. So net of all their businesses valuation is more like $400 Billion? Less than Google and Microsoft? Anyway I don't think it is unfair for an investor to want company to pay dividends when it has no good use for that cash. Remember, Carl Icahn was the guy who spun off paypal from the sinking ship that is ebay.

abritinthebay 11y ago
> when it has no good use for that cash Except Apple does have use of that cash. It's just not the short-term thinking that Wall Street and cheap get-rich-quick investors like.
- abhi3 11y ago
  Good use for 250 billion dollars? What is it that Apple needs 250 billion for that google can do for 70 Billion (still too much) or Tesla can do at 1.5 Billion (more appropriate)
  - mkehrt 11y ago
    There was that time Apple bought 1.25 billion dollars worth of flash [1]. And it's later made similar payments for similar things [2,3]. 220 billion in the bank is pretty excessive, but 1.5 billion is way too low for the sorts of things they want to do. [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_125b_for_ipod_flash_memory.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_12... [2] http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_a_half_billion_dollars_in_flash_memory http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_... [3] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down-half-a-billion-to-secure-its-flash-storage-future/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down-half-a-...
    - abhi3 11y ago
      I meant Tesla's 1.5B is appropriate for their scale. Apple would obviously need more but not 250 Billion.
      - mkehrt 11y ago
        Ah, reasonable.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    What is your basis for deciding when some entity has too much money? Do you have some sort of qualification I can't imagine?
    - 1_player 11y ago
      Common sense?
  - curun1r 11y ago
    It's only $250 billion if Apple keeps it. Since much of it is held overseas, if they return it to investors, they have to pay taxes on it first. By sitting on it the whole if it figures into their market cap.
  - abritinthebay 11y ago
    1. Much of it is held overseas so treating it as one big lump sum is incorrect and silly. 2, Leverage for loans and bonds. 3, Purchases, not of companies - of supply lines. They are the best in the industry at that. 4, Buybacks of stock (see 2) 5. Continued survival should the market change drastically and they lose their core profitable business (iPhone). 6. R&D and manufacture of new product lines. Cars, TVs, whatever. Takes capital - then also requires expenditure to lock up supplies (see 3) 5 is especially important as they've been there before - they want the ability to still move strongly even if they are not profitable in the same way. Basically it's a 10-20 year view rather than Wall Street's 1-3 year view (and I'm being charitable, Wall Street is more like a 3-12month view most of the time, at least with Tech stocks)

by abhi3 11y ago

abritinthebay 11y ago

> when it has no good use for that cash Except Apple does have use of that cash. It's just not the short-term thinking that Wall Street and cheap get-rich-quick investors like.

abhi3 11y ago
Good use for 250 billion dollars? What is it that Apple needs 250 billion for that google can do for 70 Billion (still too much) or Tesla can do at 1.5 Billion (more appropriate)
- mkehrt 11y ago
  There was that time Apple bought 1.25 billion dollars worth of flash [1]. And it's later made similar payments for similar things [2,3]. 220 billion in the bank is pretty excessive, but 1.5 billion is way too low for the sorts of things they want to do. [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_125b_for_ipod_flash_memory.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_12... [2] http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_a_half_billion_dollars_in_flash_memory http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_... [3] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down-half-a-billion-to-secure-its-flash-storage-future/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down-half-a-...
  - abhi3 11y ago
    I meant Tesla's 1.5B is appropriate for their scale. Apple would obviously need more but not 250 Billion.
    - mkehrt 11y ago
      Ah, reasonable.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  What is your basis for deciding when some entity has too much money? Do you have some sort of qualification I can't imagine?
  - 1_player 11y ago
    Common sense?
- curun1r 11y ago
  It's only $250 billion if Apple keeps it. Since much of it is held overseas, if they return it to investors, they have to pay taxes on it first. By sitting on it the whole if it figures into their market cap.
- abritinthebay 11y ago
  1. Much of it is held overseas so treating it as one big lump sum is incorrect and silly. 2, Leverage for loans and bonds. 3, Purchases, not of companies - of supply lines. They are the best in the industry at that. 4, Buybacks of stock (see 2) 5. Continued survival should the market change drastically and they lose their core profitable business (iPhone). 6. R&D and manufacture of new product lines. Cars, TVs, whatever. Takes capital - then also requires expenditure to lock up supplies (see 3) 5 is especially important as they've been there before - they want the ability to still move strongly even if they are not profitable in the same way. Basically it's a 10-20 year view rather than Wall Street's 1-3 year view (and I'm being charitable, Wall Street is more like a 3-12month view most of the time, at least with Tech stocks)