No need to question that, it clearly has not: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/financials?p=AAPL

It's just more in favor now than it was a year ago in investor sentiment

I think it’s just a group dynamic pushing this stock up buoyed by developments like Apple silicon.

That's not what's most relevant when talking about a company valuation though.

A better question would be whether the expected value of all future cash flows has doubled. Evidently, a lot of people seem to think so. (Whether these people are rational is whole another question)

==A better question would be whether the expected value of all future cash flows has doubled. Evidently, a lot of people seem to think so.==

If there is a finite limit of "investable assets", then the relationship between those assets prices is not necessarily driven solely by sentiment in favor of Apple.

It could be that almost all other assets have seen their expected future cash flows fall while Apple's has slightly risen.

It could be that people's decision is not driven by future cash flows, but some other metric or feeling.

Have Tesla's expected future cash flows increased by 8.6X in the past 12 months? It's stock has gone from $220/share to $1,900/share.

Right. It’s clearly hard to brass tacks a valuation of a 2T company, but one had better be forthcoming of even questionable quality. If no one else then Apple has a vested interest in knowing how close this valuation is to their internal knowledge. If they’re under then they could consider growing to the new valuation with opportunities otherwise unavailable outside this valuation. They could issue even more debt or offerings and go on a buying spree. Nvidia has a valuation of 300B (though probably also high relative to fundamentals). They could buy nvidia and own the future of the ML/AI market as well as the gaming market they’ve typically been shut out from competing. Toyota’s more like 190B. They could buy Toyota and immediately be one of the top auto manufacturers. They could probably do this an embarrassingly large number of times for many industries at this valuation.

It's going to be extremely interesting to see how Apple will take advantage of their sky-high valuation. Not to mention the pile of cash they're sitting on.

They won’t buy companies that bring their margin down; automakers have been struggling on hair-thin margins for years.

Agree if they were to continue run Toyota as is.

That said said, if Apple bought them for accelerating their self-driving car development, the historical profit margins are irrelevant. The the valuation would still be all about the future opportunities and future cash flows. This relative to other opportunities in the market, as other commenters rightly point out.

Yup, the valuation doesn't have to be driven solely by what Apple is doing as a company. In fact, Apple doesn't need to do anything at all if all other stocks and asset classes suddenly become less attractive.

Not even that, with changes in interest rate the discount rate changes. Also, with increase in monetary base TINA but invest into a few yielding assets.

> A better question would be whether the expected value of all future cash flows has doubled.

In real dollars, or nominal dollars?

> A better question would be whether the expected value of all future cash flows has doubled. Evidently, a lot of people seem to think so. (Whether these people are rational is whole another question)

It's rather than all other investments are worse, not that this one is real.

Agreed, that's correct for public market prices in general. I'm not commenting on the valuation of the business, merely the business model that "succeeded" (one definition is valuation). I would have said the same 2 years ago when they hit 1T.

Right. They’re clearly not an income stock based on their dividend. They’re a heavily weighted future value stock. (Basically a tech stock but wonder whether there’s a more general term?)