So it looks like somebody owes somebody an apology... and this time, it’s definitely me who owes it. Last week, I noted what looked like a precipitous fall in Apple’s market cap. It went from about $950.7B on Wednesday to $934B on Thursday. I got those numbers from MacDailyNews, and assumed that MacDailyNews had goofed.
I goofed. A couple of Mac OS Ken listeners - Charles and Paul - were kind enough to explain how I goofed to me. They both had the same explanation, though Paul’s email came with numbers, so I’ll bring you that explanation. Quoting Paul’s email:
I noticed that Yahoo had Apple's market cap around $950 billion earlier in the week, and then on Friday it was down to $934 (billion). I also noticed that the number of shares went from around 5.16 billion shares to around 4.91 billion. So, to me, it looks like Apple retired 250 million shares of the stock. This would be in keeping with their buy back program. There may be an SEC form from this past week that indicates they retired the shares and then the market tracking tools made their adjustments. Just a thought.
Keep rockin'
Paul
Well… that sounds… sound. And thanks to both Paul and Charles for the clarification.
Let us never speak of it again.
