Apple at $2T. Compare to FTSE 100

Apple stock has been on a roll ever since the last earning report issued June 27th that clearly showed that Apple products and services were indeed in demand as Covid 19 rocked the world.

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the year-ago quarter, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.58, up 18 percent. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple IR

Apple further demonstrated its financial power with a $0.82 dividend and a 4-1 stock split.

At a vale of $2Trillion, Apple is around the same size as the entire FTSE 100.

Lets see how those two compare. The FTSE is 100 of the largest UK listed companies and contains household names such as BP, Astra Zeneca, Barclays, BT, GSK, ITV, Ocado, Tesco and Unilever.

The collection of the top 100 is headed by drug companies – Astra Zeneca and GSK and £110B and £76B in market cap. Energy firms make up 10% with BP and Shell. Banks and other financials comprise 17%. Mining and Materials 12%. Chuck in a few Telecoms like BT and Vodafone at £10B and £30B respectively, BAT, Imperial and Diageo for smoke and drinks at £60B, £11B and £60B and you have a basket of large but not huge companies that are growing modestly at best plus a large number are slashing dividend payouts. Would you invest in this basket?

Payout

The FTSE 100 payout has fallen from £91 billion in January to £62 billion in June, with just 10 firms expected to generate 55% of the projected payout, after 48 companies in the U.K’s index of leading stocks have either cut, deferred or canceled dividends as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Apple increased dividend payout to $0.82 from $0.77 pre quarter over the last year.

IT focus?

The FTSE contains just a handful of IT stocks: Avast, Avera, Ocado and Sage. And of these Avast is not British, leaving the UK with a sorry state of technology stocks.

Compare these two charts for the last 12 months:

Apple $195 to $475 or FTSE 7,000 to 6,000.

With Apple growing at 11% and about to launch a new CPU based in ARM which will break Intels dominance and tax, Apple is about to enter a new level of global computing.

The following table lists the FTSE 100 companies after the changes on 22 June 2020.