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About LinkBacksRead more.A symbolic switch has occurred between the world?s two biggest technology companies.
Read more.A symbolic switch has occurred between the world?s two biggest technology companies.
Sure that's not the wrong way around? A lower value means it takes less time to recoup your outlay, ie the business is more profitable per share. By that measure MS is more profitable than usual, while Apple is much less.Note the P/E (price to earnings) ratio in the Google Finance screen shots below. This represents the ratio between the price of the shares and the annual profit per share - in other words: how many years of profit at the current rate it would take you to recoup your initial outlay.
Companies typically trade at a P/E of around 15. Deviation above this number indicates perceived higher earnings growth potential, and below the opposite. Yesterday, Apple's P/E was 20.72, while Microsoft's was 12.93. Nuff said.
Unless you're saying that because the profit is so low, investors are speculating that it will increase in the future.
We're both right. For the share price to be driven up to a level where it's less profitable per share indicates anticipated growth - i.e. the P/E ratio will get smaller in future, which is why they're buying now.Originally Posted by kalniel
It's not the comparison it once was when both companies were mostly limited to the desktop PC market.
These days much of Apple's market cap is down the success if iPhones, iPods, iTunes etc rather than Mac computers and OS. They still only command a fairly small shared of the PC/laptop hardware market, and a single digit share in OS, browsers etc.
Microsoft on the other hand are still firmly rooted in Windows and desktop/laptop/server applications, sure they have sidelines in mobiles, Zune etc but they are only small players there.
It's more like two giants playing in a yard all of there own, who occasionally pop over the fence to collect their ball and have a quick kick-about while they are there....
high PER does not just indicate implied growth, it can indicate many things.
People expect better results, if a company has under performed it will have a high PER when annualised with a non div yielding earning.
Its a bit hard to compare a growth stock and a div stock on these metrics without understanding how one calc's 'earnings'....
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I wonder if someone could invent an anti-RDF emitter.
Fantastic way of describing the relationship.
Market Cap only takes publicly traded shares in to account and as far as i am aware, MS has a lower % of publicly traded shares than Apple meaning MS is still worth more in real terms.
Still a phenominal turn around for Apple though.
I think it's great that Apple has a symbolic win over Microsoft.
It kicks Microsoft up the back side to be more innovative and listen to customer's needs. It is starting to happen which is good.
the correct title should be apple worth more than microsoft, but sells to way more markets.
if you say apple is ahead of microsoft, you're lying to yourself
This simply can't be right IMO. Microsoft is a true behemoth, Apple is nowhere near (again IMO) in terms of sheer size and what fingers they have in pies.
Both companies compete on different playing fields.
Apple is all about their media (iTunes, iPod) and smartphones (iPhone) and Mac computer sales.
Microsoft is all about their software (Windows, Office Suite) and gaming (Xbox 360).
Really, there is no comparison. Why do people keep insisting that there is? Apple doesn't specialize in any software beyond a basic, cheaply functioning OS for their computers. Apple doesn't have any product in the gaming market.
Why have Microsoft shares taken such a kicking in recent months?
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
If you took away non computer revenue, they wouldn't be in the same league.
But apple has itunes music sales, which is massive,
not to mention ipods and iphones...
Except for say xbox sales, the amount of money they cream on every game. Not to mention the games themselves.
You don't have to take away any revenue, they aren't in the same league, most people don't understand what market cap is, including the person who wrote this title. Worse thou was the stuff in the metro, it makes me hate apple so much because all of the press seam to verbatim the carefully prepared press releases.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Yes, I know market cap is some made-up figure based on potential...
Point us at some real figures anyone?
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