iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high Apple's share value hit an unprecedented $500bn in pre-market trading this morning, making the company worth more than Poland and many other things. The spike followed just hours after the firm sent out an emailed invite to the iPad 3 launch. Anticipation over the new fondleslab, due to be unveiled on 7 March, sent speculators …
This post has been deleted by its author
GDP is based on turnover not value added. It is the sum of all trading not the sum of all wealth creation. Which is why if you sue MacDonald for a few million for serving coffee that is to hot, that gets added to the GDP even though no wealth has been created.
A better example would be to compare the increase in Poland's GDP vs Apples profits or even better the increased value to Poland's capital structure vs Apples profits.
"Apple's share value hit an unprecedented $500bn in pre-marketing trading this morning, making the company worth more than Poland"
Simply not true as any fule kno.
You cannot buy Poland for $500 billion. You can buy Apple for $500 billion (well, alright, maybe a takeover premium).
Because $500 billion is the GDP of Poland. That is, it's the value added in the Polish economy each year.
Apple's $500 billion is the net discounted value of all the value that Apple will produce in the future. This is comparing a flow with a stock.
The accurate comparison is profits plus wages paid for the company as against the GDP of a country. A more accurate comarison would this be that Apple is similar to Luxembourg ($55 billion GDP, couple of hundred thousand people in the labour force).
The thing that finally makes your mind up, maybe.
Announcement of impending launch = right if there was ever a time, this would be it. Buy now, sell on March 7th immediately after the launch of better magical device than magical device already out there. Hope to make some cash in the process.
To be honest, you could look at Apple product launch cycles and easily predict that buying mid February and mid August would be a pretty good bet to tie in with ipad and iPhone announcements and cash in a couple of weeks later.
I don't buy shares for the management of said company to make charitable decisions - that isn't what they are paid for and it is unlikely to play to their skill set. I buy shares I think will maximise my personal wealth. Any philanthropic decisions should be made by the ultimate owners of the wealth when it has been returned to them either via capital gains or dividend income.
They're notorious for not announcing anything before its ready for sale, with caveats, like when they're entering a new market and announcing it 6 months early allows devs to get on board, disrupts the market they're entering and obviously isn't going to impact their own sales.
Media rumours on the other hand could potentially create such an effect, if an expected product doesn't live up to the hype, yet the 4S not being a 5 would seem to fit that bill and it doesn't seem to have suffered any for it.
TL;DR, don't bet on it.
Dividends are nice but a stock split isn't subject to the taxes a dividend would be. A nice 3 for 2 split would still keep the price fairly high and keep it out of the hands of the high frequency traders while giving the shareholders a little something extra that they can do with as they please.
I don't get your reference. A split does not give shareholders anything additional. The own the same claim on the company as before.
In addition do think that those involved in high frequency trading do not have the capital to trade a stock worth what AAPL is. I venture to guess they can trade even AAPL by the 1000s of shares.
There's been an official Apple communique setting out the date the iPad 3 is going to be released? This morning? And where the hell was the new article for that?!
For goodness sake, you've been publishing god know how many contradictory rumours about what it'll be and when it'll be released for months now, and then you totally ignore the actual official announcement? FFS El Reg!
Most people commentating on here still don't grasp Apple (I braced for the replies for this "they sell shiny trinkets" etc. etc. etc.)
You think the company is like a giant scam, conning the customer. Built on foundations of hype and marketing with no real technical competence underneath.
A lot of highly, skilled, technically minded people have no time or interest in UI, HCI and good design and find the whole area a bit wooly. And that is fine - no one has a problem with that.
Where I have a problems is when it is dismissed as not important. Just because you don't think the things Apple values (i.e. usability and design) are unimportant, it doesn't mean that (many) other people don't fund them important or of value.
There was a picture the late Steve Jobs used use: it was of a signpost with two directions labelled: one arrow pointed to “Technology”, the other to “Liberal Arts”. He said Apple stood at the intersection of these two worlds. And I think that is a more accurate way to think of Apple, rather than aforementioned purveyor shiny toys.
If other companies poured in the same laser like focus and attention to detail to their products, then maybe, just maybe Apple wouldn't be making it look so easy to make money.
There:
Now I don't know why I bothered with that. I know I'll wake up tomorrow to find a big red thumbs down and the number "52" (or higher).
I agree with you.
What's truly mystifying is that the exact same rules that underlie good good product design, HCI design, UI design also apply to good software design, engineering and more. In fact, if you're designing anything that involves getting one or more complex systems to work with each other, you're going to find the same fundamental laws apply.
Last time I checked, humans were complex systems too.
There is an above average incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in the "techie" community, which certainly explains a lot. Grokking computers is a lot easier than grokking people when you have an ASD.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
