Apple Can Afford to Buy Goldman Sachs
If the economy is flagging, nobody told Steve Jobs. Apple announced its second quarter earnings Tuesday afternoon and shareholders should be pleased. The company posted record high quarterly revenues of $28.57 billion and record high quarterly profits of $7.31 billion as iPad and iPhone sales enjoyed triple-digit growth. It's a day full of superlatives for the Cupertino kids. The Wall Street Journal's Dennis K. Berman notes on Twitter, "Apple now has $78 billion of cash in the bank*. That's worth more than all of Goldman Sachs, market value $65 billion."
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“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs in a press release. Thrilled is sort of an understatement as Apple shattered their own revenue goal by $5 billion and even crushed Wall Street's estimate by $3 billion. That's billion with a "b".
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Meanwhile, the rest of Wall Street enjoyed its best day since March. On the heels of an increase in home construction, strong quarterly reports from American corporations and good news on the debt ceiling debate, the Dow jumped 202 points, marking its best daily performance of 2011. The news wasn't good for everyone. Goldman Sachs and Yahoo reported lower profits than expected. And due to recent settlements associated with the financial crisis, Bank of America posted an $8.8 billion loss.
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* Apple said on a conference call that the company had only $76.2 billion in the bank. The increase of over $10 billion still has the company comfortably ahead of Goldman, though. Should Goldman ever wish to cash out, Apple could afford to buy them at their current market cap and still have billions left over.
