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Apple Is Not Wasting Its Cash Aggressively Enough
- goodcanadian 14y agoI am somewhat intrigued by this as an investor. Simply sitting on the cash is not a very good investment. While having some around is a good strategic move, $72 billion in current assets is probably excessive. Besides, it is not like Apple would have a problem with debt financing if they decided to make a major acquisition (a scenario that I find unlikely, anyway). What to do with the cash is a bit of a harder problem, though. The default option should be to give it back to the investors as a dividend or share repurchase. I would actually go with the latter as I think Apple is oversold/undervalued at the moment. I was thinking of selling, but now I am thinking of buying, again. On the other hand, I am not particularly convinced by the "social good" argument of the article; this is business, after all. The author is right, though, that there is certainly an opportunity to try something wild (and huge) which could change the world (and possibly make even more money for the investors). That sounds like a very Steve Jobs thing to do. As a data point rather than a serious suggestion, this is more cash than Robert Zubrin suggested would be necessary for a Mars mission back in the mid-nineties in his book, "The Case for Mars."