Apple Steals Market Cap From MOT, RIMM, PALM, And NOK

Apple’s (AAPL) shares rose about 8.3% today, adding over $6.4 billion to the companies market capitalization. The put it at $79.6 billion.

Assuming the market is efficient, that money came from somewhere else. Maybe the investment came from cash waiting to be used by institutional and indivdual investors, but a great deal probably was a yield from other stocks that took a haircut. A lot of that would be from companies that the new iPhone might hurt.

Motorola (MOT) lost about $1 billion in market cap today to $44.2 billion.. Nokia (NOK) dropped over $1.6 billion to $77.7 billion. (So, Apple is now worth more that the world’s largest cell phone company.) Palm (PALM) lost about $200 million in market cap, and RIMM (RIMM) dropped almost 8% which is $2.1 billion of its hide.

So, about $5 billion in market cap disappeared at four iPhone competitors and over $6 billion poured into AAPL. Maybe a few other companies got pounded to the tune of another $1 billion or so to make up the difference.

One of the more extraordinary results of the Apple stock price rise is that the company now trades at 3.8 times its sales. At Nokia, that figure is 1.5 times. At Motorola the figure is 1.1x.

Wow.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.