Subscribe to MacTribe News

At its current $100 a share, its market valuation is $89 billion - about two-thirds of the mighty GE. GE makes jet engines, brain scanners, all kinds of white goods and sells $180 billion of stuff; about six times what Apple does. This suggests $1 of sales at Apple is worth four dollars of activity at the US’s most respected corporation. That’s pretty good going.

Buoyed by its recent financial quarter’s performance, its continued product success and a legion of fan investors; only Steve Jobs’s health and the world economic landscape cloud a perfect picture.

Are Apple Shareholders in Denial?
On the plus side the Apple iTunes/iPhone product range is beginning to look like a bullet proof franchise. Wannabe emulators just aren’t cutting into the Apple convergence hegemony. However the notebook side looks vulnerable. The pricing on notebooks is heading down at an accelerating pace, towards sub-$100 levels. How will Apple compete in this low value-add space? And then, if the maestro does not return, can Apple really keep the magic going? No corporation has ever successfully replaced a truly charismatic leader; not Disney, not Standard Oil, not Microsoft, not GE.

Yet there is a ton of momentum in the Apple story, energy that, if Jobs does not return, should take the company forwards for a couple of years at least.

If the magic ends and Apple is valued - like say GE - its share price will fall to the $20-$30 range. If it can hold its course, its valuation will remain high.

Right now the market doesn’t know and when it does the Apple stock price will break out of its current range either one way or the other - and they say the market is always right.