On Wednesday, Apple"s stock in after-hours trading took a tumble on the news that CEO Steve Jobs would be taking medical leave. To take the helm for Jobs is Chief Operating Office Tim Cook, who isn"t new to the job.
In 2004, while Jobs recovered from surgery that removed a malignant tumor from his pancreas, Cook briefly took over running day-to-day operations. The stock also took a tumble then too, down 2.3% on August 2, the day after Apple announced the news. The stock continued to fall to nearly 8% by the end of that week.
A month later, the stock not only recovered, but gained 10.9% on its July 30 price, closing at what now seems an impossibly low $35.86.
In July 2004, two weeks before Jobs" operation, Apple reported earnings of $61 million on sales of $2.014 billion and was holding just under $5 billion in cash. In its last quarterly statement, Apple reported earnings of $1.14 billion of sales of $7.9 billion, with nearly $25 billion in cash.
In other words, it"s the same company, only four or five times bigger.