I am not a financial whiz or even moderately edumicated, so do not buy or sell stock based on what I write here. Clarification sand corrections eagerly solicite

I am not a financial whiz or even moderately edumicated, so do not buy or sell stock based on what I write here. Clarification sand corrections eagerly solicited! > I'd be grateful if some financial wizard could explain to me why it has $33 billion of goodwill on its books when Apple, by contrast, has only $480 million One source of what accountants call goodwill is free spending on companies. When HP buys Palm for $1.2 billion, it will add up all of Palm's cash and assets and put those on its books. If all that adds up to less than B$1.2, the rest is marked as "goodwill." Later on, HP can decide that they really didn't get B$1.2 out of Palm and adjust the amount of goodwill to reflect overpaying. This is called "writing it down." It's very embarrassing but it's also prudent, as having too much goodwill on your books makes you look like a financial pufferfish. A writedown trades one-time embarrassment for long-term attractiveness. B$33 is a lot, it probably reflects HP having done a lot of M&A while not writing the goodwill down.