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The Fortune Magazine compiles and publishes an annual list that consists of 500 corporations in the US. Therefore, for this assignment, the selected Fortune 500 Company is Apple Inc. which is a registered American multinational company that has played a significant role in the technology revolution mostly in the last two decades with innovations in areas such as smartphones, portable tablets, computer software, and computer peripherals. This company has grown significantly and it has employed numerous employees, the ticker symbol for Apple Inc. is AAPL. The significance of the ticker symbol in the stock exchange market is that it plays a vital role in company identification, thus, traders can easily identify Apple Inc. stocks in the market.

Price-to-Earning (PE) Ratio

This financial measurement is important for every company operating on the New York Stock Exchange Market (NYSE), the major role of the PE ratio is to evaluate the current share price of the company relative to its per-share earnings. The current PE Ratio according to Apple Inc. (AAPL) Financial Ratios and Metrics (n.d.) is 33:72, this ratio shows how much each investor who is willing to invest in Apple Inc. shares is willing to pay per dollar of their earnings and with higher ratios, the figures show that investors are expecting the company t significantly grow in the future.

Stock Dividends and Yield

In 2012, Apple Inc. resumed paying its dividends after altering the process for 17 years, for the last ten years, the company has recorded steady growth in earnings which has resulted in increases in annual dividends paid. According to Wei (2022), as of the first quarter of 2022, Apple Inc. was paying $0.22 per share on the quarterly dividend which translated to a 0.55% dividend yield. In 2021, the company paid a total of $14.4 billion in dividends and the payout ratio was 15.2% of the 94.7 billion net income. These dividends are payments made by the company as profit distribution to its shareholders and the payout ratio shows that the dividends proportion paid out.

Earnings per Share

This is a very crucial metric in a company because it shows the proportion of a company’s profit that is allocated to each member as an outstanding share of the company’s common stock. Earnings per share serve as an indicator of Apple Inc.’s profitability since these are net earnings of the company or the losses that are attributed to the company shareholders, they are convertible to securities. According to Apple EPS (2024), in the quarter ending March 31, its EPS was $1.53 which was a 0.66% increase year-over-year. Other EPS is $6.13 in 2023, $6.11 in 2022, and $5.61 in 2021 which represented 0.33%, $8.91, and 71.04% increases in 2022, 2021, and 2020 respectively.

Revenue Estimates

The above metrics show that Apple In. has been performing well in the last three years, reporting positive figures each year, looking at the first quarter which ended in March 2024, this year looks promising and the total sales are expected to grow in the next twelve months. The company has had a steady growth in revenue and in the next twelve months this growth is expected to reach $441 billion with the next quarter in September alone expected to generate $92.93 billion.

Apple Inc. Revenue from the Last Three Years

Apple like many other companies was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, however, in 2021, the company regained its track and recorded $378.32 billion which was a 28.62% increase from the previous year