People need to stop using the word "worth" as replacement for "market capitalization". Really, whole idea of multiplying stock price with number of stocks to compute "worth" is absurd (if you imagine Apple releasing more stock or buying back all of it, the prices won't change linearly).

Ultimately what matters is current revenues and profits not the future estimate of revenues and profits by bunch of casino gamblers. If you just look at revenues, Apple is ahead but by not absurd amounts. For example, AT&T had revenues of $39B while Apple had $53B. The combined revenues of only AT&T and Disney is more than sufficient to beat Apple.

Apple’s shareholders have, collectively, decided that they would rather hold Apple stock than have a trillion of today’s dollars shared between them. A trillion dollars with which they could do all sorts of other things. But no, they would rather own a slice of the future of apple.

To the question, ‘which would you rather have: a trillion US dollars cash, or ownership of apple?’, the market has said ‘apple’

So... yes, that is what apple’s ‘worth’.

Market cap is a great representation of what a company is worth. As you pointed out, market cap is share price x outstanding shares. For the case of Apple, it's $1 trillion, which is minimum amount you'd need to pay to buy out Apple. Issuing more stocks or initiating buy back will change stock price, but it won't impact the total market cap. Stock price already reflects fair value of the company's earnings performance and potential.

Nope, it makes perfect sense.

Current revenues and profits are a drop in the bucket compared to the next 30 years, you should focus mostly on the future.

And these aren't casino gamblers, prices are ultimately set by the professionals who analyze this stuff full-time for a living. The market cap is simply the "wisdom of the crowds" who are putting their money where their mouth is.

If you have a better way of calculating the worth of companies, then you'll become extremely, extremely, extremely rich. Good luck.

Based on the stock plans available to me, I’d say the professionals are actually a worse choice than random guessing.

While watching nytimes simultaneously drain my phone battery and data plan is fun and all, I feel like this could be better represented if you used static graphs on a regular web page.

These market capitalizations do not seem sane to me.. that's 3,076 dollars for every us citizen, including all the kids. I think this might be the moment the stock market jumped the shark.

Remember that the customer base is global, not just U.S.

But just ask yourself, over the next 30 years will somebody produce that much profit for the company? Think of the 10 cell phones, 7 laptops, 5 iPads, Apple Music subscription, etc. that you'll purchase over the next 30 years. If you spend $1,000/yr on Apple products and it's 20% profit, they make $200/year x 30 years = $6,000. Then discount accordingly...

There's nothing crazy about it, no shark-jumping necessary.

Is it that bad, though? Apple is selling $1000 iPhones at 70% profit margins with a US market penetration of ~40%. Handwaving some really bad math, Apple will have a trillion dollars in profits from that segment alone over the next 10 years. This discounts worldwide markets and every other product line that they also have.

That 70% profit margin doesn't count r&d, marketing, salaries, services, software, etc. Not to mention that the iphone has significant market penetration outside the us e.g. it's a major status symbol in most of eastern asia, and it has I think 70% market share in canada (!).

Apple barely hits half of a $100B a year in profit overall. They aren’t going to do a trillion dollars of profit over the next 10 years. And are going to be insanely far from that profit level from iPhones in US or otherwise alone.

It's almost like Apple is a global company.