No, it's mostly multiple expansion. You'll see a lot of responses across other threads claiming it's due to the low interest rate environment (the justificatio

No, it's mostly multiple expansion. You'll see a lot of responses across other threads claiming it's due to the low interest rate environment (the justification). That plays a role, sure. Interest rates have commonly been near zero for the better part of the past decade though. So why was Apple's PE ratio ~11-13 previously while interest rates were very low (0% or sub 1%) with a quasi normal economy, and now its PE ratio is more like 30-35 during a crushing pandemic recessionary environment while interest rates are zero? Apple's operating income for the past four quarters is not considerably higher than it was in fiscal 2016, so why is the stock three to four times higher? Surely their growth rate must be extreme right now, to justify that radical increase (answer: nope). What must the future growth expectations be to justify a 300% stock increase; that Apple's enormous profit will double soon? (nope, it's not gonna happen) It has more to do with a stock market mania that has taken over, than it has to do with interest rates, at this point. The interest rate explanation maybe gets you to second base, the rest of it is mania. You see that represented in the ever expanding dotcom bubble style extreme valuations that are increasingly common (SHOP, TSLA, NVDA, AMD, DOCU, etc). NVDA's context for example will remind of CSCO in 1999-2000 (except NVDA is growing slower today than CSCO was then). You'll see it in the pop-celebrity status of people like Dave Portnoy (who suddenly decided to become a trader with little experience). Whereas such extreme valuations were not so common three to eight years ago (circa 2012-2017), while we had a quasi normal economic situation and 0% rates (or otherwise near 1% or lower) as well. All that said, nobody should ever doubt how far a mania can go in regards to pushing valuations toward the moon.