AND MSFT is Back on Top of AAPL...how long will they stay neck and neck?

AND MSFT is Back on Top of AAPL...how long will they stay neck and neck?(google.com)

6 points by fusionman 16 years ago | 2 comments

encoderer 16 years ago |

Here's a sincere question.. to whom does this matter?

On the technicals, AAPL seems overpriced at this level. PE ratio approaching twice MSFTs.

But a small number of people are really trying to turn this into some sort of horse race, and I don't get why?

Qz 16 years ago | |

It's more of a symbolic thing. Remember, stock prices represent how much people think the company will be worth, not how much it's worth right now.

encoderer 16 years ago | | |

Forgive me for being trite, but that's the high-school economics view of things.

Stock prices are about as complex a thing as exists in our economy.

For buy-and-hold investors, you're more or less correct. But they're a fraction of the money in the market. The truth is, stock prices represent a witches brew of investor motives that coelesce around making money on the stock. And you can make money on the way up, on the way down, in a stable market or a volatile market, in a growing company, and a bankrupt company, etc.

And the "symbolic thing" is exactly my point -- some minority of people seem to be assigning symbolism to something that couldn't be more abstract.

Perhaps I just don't "get it" and there's a groundswell out there who cares about these things. But what I'm wondering is.. it's not investors that care much about market cap. it's not customers. Who is it? Is it really just apple fans that want some sort of feather in their cap?