Apple Loses Jobs


 

Steve Jobs has resigned. Will Apple continue to shine or will it be Googled over now…

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jriF2sNvvUe352Wne4Qjpu2R0x-g?docId=CNG.af132ca0e3a0fd2cd947182992220075.9e1

Apple – Bread Lode


Apple is juicy – loads of moolah. It has a cash reserve of USD66billion. That is half of what Google is worth as a whole – the enterprise value, in fact. It is also more than the entire combined market cap of Nokia, RIM (Blackberry) and Motorola Mobility. It is also larger than any hedge fund in the world.  Technically with that kind of cash reserves, Apple could stop selling tomorrow and run for the next 7 years. So really, why not just give out free iPad 2 to some poor students especially in some third world countries? If it uses just a fraction of that reserve for charity, it would have Bill Gates’ charity foundation pale into comparison. You’ve got to love Apple.

AIG Battered


And so we survived to fight another day. After a very nervy and frantic 2 days, the storm finally calmed for us. For 2 days, we rushed around to put together statements and briefing contents and nervously peeked at rating agencies’ websites. Google chrome would have been useful to provide tabs on different sites simultaneously, including the Federal Reserve site. AIG was under siege and everyone wanted to know if we were going to survive or go down Lehman’s path.

Lehman was a venerable institution. Back in Malaysia with a previous employer, any sales guys who sign up Lehman would be over the moon. But then again the sentiments were the same re Bear Stern. BS went what – 6 months ago now? Now Lehman is gone too. I suppose we get used to it after a while – that big venerable names do go down. Barings’ demise didn’t take long to adjust. But that was because of 1 man’s games. Nick Leeson’s misdemeanours pale into insignificance given the current turmoils of CDS and CDO’s. They promise “the mother of all credit squeeze”, “financial market tsunami” and other economic upheavals of unprecedented proportions. They have brought down huge banks and made the venerable vulnerable.

But not AIG it seems. Not yet anyway. George Soros said the worst is yet to come. We at AIG may have felt that we have just emerged from a storm but Soros thinks the markets are heading into one. Bracing ourselves for a huge hit would be what’s required I guess.

So work has resumed normalcy for now. I have become so tired.