Why do people even care? Has consumer culture so overtaken our minds that we identify personally with the things that we buy?
Yes.
Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
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Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#12How about this alternative way of measuring the 'value' of a company: Net asset value (including retained earnings) plus the sum of all dividends ever issued, minus total investment capital.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#13When are these numbers ever inflation adjusted? Biggest grossing movie of all time inflation adjusted is still Gone With the Wind, but that didn't really stop people from talking about Titanic or Avatar.
"Apple's market capitalization is still well below Microsoft's 1999 record if inflation is taken into account. The $619 billion then becomes $846 billion." -- http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-market-value-hits-600b-1... note that was from april of this year.
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Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#14>.... [Apple] would have a value of more than $3 trillion by 2020. As the Times points out, that is bigger than the 2011 gross domestic product of France or Brazil. Comparing an outlandish guess for a 2020 market cap versus a 2012 gross domestic product (a flow of money, not a store) is hand waving, not analysis.
It's a [failing] attempt to make sense of hard figures. Pretty much like 3 times the distance between earth and moon.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#15How about this alternative way of measuring the 'value' of a company: Net asset value (including retained earnings) plus the sum of all dividends ever issued, minus total investment capital.
The dividends issued historically are gone, entirely separate from the company. Assets and liabilities can exist in different forms, including tricky ones like depreciation and intangible assets. If such 'value' is accounted for important uses, manipulating it will be much cheaper and easier than manipulating market cap anyway.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#16Most valuable publicly traded company perhaps, see Saudi Aramco: http://blogs.mccombs.utexas.edu/titman/2010/03/01/more-thoug...
I'm curious where Standard Oil would stand had it not been broken up.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#17Why do people even care? Has consumer culture so overtaken our minds that we identify personally with the things that we buy?
I think it has been like this for a long time.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#18What about what ever entities that went after the Spice islands? Or east india company? I guess they were commissioned from the monarchies or parliment themselves so perhaps they don't count. Perhaps the oil companies of today?
either way it would be interesting to know, if records still exists about their worth.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#19How about this alternative way of measuring the 'value' of a company: Net asset value (including retained earnings) plus the sum of all dividends ever issued, minus total investment capital.
The dividends issued historically are gone, entirely separate from the company. Assets and liabilities can exist in different forms, including tricky ones like depreciation and intangible assets. If such 'value' is accounted for important uses, manipulating it will be much cheaper and easier than manipulating market cap anyway.
Sure, it's hard to measure the value of assets. But look at it this way: In the long run, every company dies, so assets always go to zero. What investors (in aggregate) are left with is the net sum of dividends paid out.
To answer "what is the most valuable company in history" I would look for the company which paid out the most in dividends before it expired. Stock price is largely a measure of which company has managed to attract the most suckers.
Re: Apple Is Not The Most Valuable Company In The History Of The World — IBM Is
#20Most valuable publicly traded company perhaps, see Saudi Aramco: http://blogs.mccombs.utexas.edu/titman/2010/03/01/more-thoug...
I'm curious where Standard Oil would stand had it not been broken up.
$1tn according to Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup