That’s the $500 billion question. Indeed, that’s roughly the value of Apple on the stock market. First, let’s be clear: Apple is an amazing company. No company has been able to create a voracious desire for gadgets—and then fill that desire—the way Apple has. It is also a money-making machine. Apple has $117.2 billion in cash on the balance sheet, which means they could hypothetically buy Amazon.com and have about $17 billion left over.
I would also say that by some metrics, the stock is not all that expensive. Professionals use something called a P/E ratio, which basically measures how much you’re paying for each dollar of profit a company makes. And on that metric Apple is no more expensive than the market.
