The article discusses this: it was the earnings collapse of the rest of the S&P500 during the deep recession. This collapse didn't hurt Apple proportionately, b

The article discusses this: it was the earnings collapse of the rest of the S&P500 during the deep recession. This collapse didn't hurt Apple proportionately, but since their stock dropped off quite a bit despite that, their P/E was way down relative to the rest of the S&P500. (3x cash on hand at one point, the author says, which is pretty crazy)