Friday, May 21, 2010

Market Capitalization: Apple v. Wal-Mart, Microsoft

Apple's (AAPL) market capitalization (~$218.2 billion today) has been higher than Wal-Mart's (~$191.5 billion) for about the last three months (see chart above), which is especially interesting considering that Apple's market cap was less than $10 billion in late 2003 when Wal-Mart's value was almost $200 billion. 

Apple hasn't quite caught up yet to Microsoft's market capitalization, but it's getting pretty close - they're only about $15 billion apart now; $233.3 billion for Microsoft vs. $218.2 billion for Apple (see chart below).  


12 Comments:

At 5/21/2010 3:18 PM, Blogger misterjosh said...

gosh - I love my iPhone, but I gotta think Apple's maybe a little bit overvalued.

 
At 5/21/2010 5:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Microsoft should increase the dividend and stop pretending it is a growth company. It is a nice solid steady company, but it is not leading innovation. Other than their core businesses, their other businesses are kinda clumsy. Xbox being the rare exception where they made something work.

Internet Explorer, Hotmail, Zune, Bing, their hardware division, Windows Mobile, etc. are all functional, not outstanding.

The crazy thing looking back just a few years is the fine the EU imposed on Microsoft for dominating the media player market. By the time that was levied, the ipod had made computer based music players irrelevant.

 
At 5/21/2010 8:02 PM, Anonymous Party Platteform said...

"
misterjosh said...

gosh - I love my iPhone, but I gotta think Apple's maybe a little bit overvalued.

5/21/2010 3:18 PM
"

German traders can not use *naked short sales* in Germany. If they come to USA for shorting AAPL, will they bring all their money with them? Will this help our tax base? Merkel's loss, our gain.

 
At 5/21/2010 8:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

16 Items They Only Sell At Chinese Walmarts

 
At 5/21/2010 9:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Party Platteform said...
German traders can not use *naked short sales* in Germany. If they come to USA for shorting AAPL, will they bring all their money with them? Will this help our tax base? Merkel's loss, our gain.


Naked short selling is illegal in the US. It is surprising it is even allowed at all in Europe.

 
At 5/22/2010 5:48 AM, Blogger ardyanovich said...

I'm kind of confused about what market cap means. I know it has something to do about how much a company is "worth", but that has a fuzzy meaning to me. So let's say I was faced with a decision to buy either Apple or Walmart. If Apple has a higher market cap, does that mean I would have to pay more to buy Apple than Walmart?

 
At 5/22/2010 3:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ardyanovich, market cap is shares outstanding times the stock price.

Theoretically, if you wanted to buy the entire company, it would cost more for a company with a higher market cap.

May or may not be true since if you buy the entire company you have to take on all the outstanding debt, although you get all the assets.

Rarely there's a "take under" where a purchaser offers less than the current market cap to buy the entire company.

 
At 5/22/2010 5:43 PM, Anonymous Scipio said...

Why are we not surprised, Josh, that you have an iPhone. Do you also drive a Prius, a Volvo, a Subaru, or ride a bike? Do you have bumper stickers on the back of your car?

It always helps a business or a politician to have cult followers. Refer to Clinton's earnings in a later post.

Imagine what Obama will get in speaking fees when he's "done". Hell, he ought to do his best job to LOSE the next election.

 
At 5/22/2010 6:11 PM, Blogger ardyanovich said...

Thanks Anonymous. You'd think Walmart would be worth way more since they have more "stuff" and Apple just has their little gadgets.

 
At 5/23/2010 6:51 PM, Anonymous Party Platteform said...

"
Naked short selling is illegal in the US. It is surprising it is even allowed at all in Europe.

5/21/2010 9:11 PM
Blogger ardyanovich
"

Thanks for the warning. I am going to stop doing it.

 
At 5/23/2010 9:20 PM, Anonymous Steve said...

I wonder what happens to Apple when Steve Jobs is no longer leading the company? A lot of great companies become average when their founders are no longer active.

 
At 5/24/2010 8:29 AM, Anonymous morganovich said...

does this remind anyone else of the stories from early 2000 about yahoo now having a bigger market cap than GE?

 

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