The Apple logo is now worth $39.3 billion according to Brand Finance
30 Top U.S. Brands. Click to enlarge. Source: Brand Finance
Microsoft (MSFT) is down 9% to $39 billion. Google (GOOG) is up 9% to nearly $48.3 billion. But Apple (AAPL) is way up -- 33% -- to overtake, for the first time, Microsoft, IBM (IBM), Wal-Mart (WMT) and General Electric (GE).
Those are the highlights of the interim brand value report issued last week by Brand Finance, a London-based consulting company that specializes in putting a dollar value what you might think is a rather intangible marketing concept.
Overall, the value of the world's top 100 brands have fallen 2.4% since January, according to Brand Finance, dragged down by the plummeting reputations of financial institutions like Wells Fargo (WFC) and Bank of America (BAC).
As if to prove there's some wiggle room in these valuations, a competing firm, BrandZ, put the value of the Apple brand at $153.3 billion in May, ahead of Google. (See How Apple became the world's most valuable brand.)
BrandZ bases its ratings, in part, on a survey of 2 million consumers. Brand Finance uses a more straightforward discounted cash flow technique to arrive at a net present value of a company's trademark and associated intellectual property.
Bank of America's market cap hit $70 billion Monday. Apple could buy it with cash.
In the wake of Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. government securities -- from AAA to AA+ -- Apple's (AAPL) shares are getting pummeled along with the rest of the market.
But after the subprime mortgage debacle and the debt ceiling circus, it's worth remembering that this is a company whose profits last quarter grew 125% year MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 8, 2011 12:22 PM ET
Strike prices range from $335 to $400 as traders scramble to deal with a market in free fall
Monday 10:30 a.m. snapshot. Source: thinkorswim.com. Click to enlarge.
A hedge-fund trader hoping to make some quick money in Apple (AAPL) weekly options would be hard-pressed to make sense of the chart at right, a snapshot of thinkorswim.com's AAPL options board taken at 10:30 a.m. Monday morning.
The bottom two graphs show open interest in MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 8, 2011 11:35 AM ET
A $73.5 million investment in shares of Apple Inc. is now worth $207 million
Photo © 2005 Derek Ramsey
Oil revenues from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline provided the capital for the Alaska Permanent Fund, a giant savings account created by the state's voters 1976 to make sure the legislature didn't spend the windfall all at once. But what's fueled the fund's growth in recent years -- and helped it hit a record $40.1 billion MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 3, 2011 6:41 AM ET
Google reports earnings after the closing bell tomorrow and analysts weigh in on that they expect.
Sorry for the jargon, folks, but the analysts following Google aren't really the literary type. Reading through, there's not too much surprising here-- analysts are all expecting a blowout quarter for Google, due in large part to the holiday season. Let's check in on how much they see Google pulling in and what that'll do MORE
Seth Weintraub - Jan 19, 2011 3:46 PM ET
A curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web.
Steve Ballmer's Kinect avatar shown during his CES keynote. Photo: Robyn Beck/Getty Images
At CES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed the company's plans to expand its motion-based Xbox 360 Kinect controller, which has already sold more than 8 million units, beyond gaming. Users can expect hands-free navigation of Netflix and (finally) Hulu Plus, as well as body MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Jan 6, 2011 8:45 AM ET
Has it found common cause with Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Bank of America?
WikiLeaks App icon. Source: iTunes
Igor Barinov's WikiLeaks App didn't get much attention when it appeared on the App Store last Saturday.
That's not a big surprise. After all, the iPhone app wasn't an official WikiLeak's project and it didn't bring much to the party. For $1.99 ($1 of which was apparently donated to Julian Assange's organization) you MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 21, 2010 8:13 AM ET
An analyst thinks that Google's prominence in search will allow it to climb up the value chain in other highly profitable areas.
Analysts want to see what the next big thing is going to be from Google. Sure Google does a brisk business with advertising against search, but what other area of their business has real revenue growth potential?
When consumers buy through a Google search, Google stands to make a percentage.
Google's (GOOG) MORE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Intel Corp | 26.73 | -0.43 | -1.58% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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