Apple (AAPL)
Forward P/E 37.86x (SECONDARY) is 1.58x the peer median of 23.95x and the highest in the peer set, while trailing P/E 39.82x sits above every FY21-25 year-end print (24.46-37.28x) and the ~25.35x 10-year mean. PEG 3.41 is the set's highest against a 13.25% 3-year EPS growth forecast, even though latest-quarter revenue grew +16.4% YoY (PRIMARY) — the price requires growth to continue, not accelerate, so it is overvalued, not a bubble.
What would change this label: To FAIRLY PRICED if delivered EPS growth sustains >=18-20% for two consecutive quarters and compresses the forward multiple toward ~28x on earned numbers (or the price falls to that level at unchanged estimates); toward BUBBLE-risk if revenue growth slows below +10% YoY while the forward multiple stays above 35x.
Apple's shares cost about 38 times the profit expected next year, while similar big tech companies cost about 24 times — and Apple is not growing faster than them. The business itself is excellent and makes enormous cash, so this is not a bubble. You are simply paying a top price for it, with little room if growth slows.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Apple returned +158.68% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Apple: -33.4% (2024-12-26 to 2025-04-08). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E 37.86x (SECONDARY) is 1.58x the peer median of 23.95x and the highest in the peer set, while trailing P/E 39.82x sits above every FY21-25 year-end print (24.46-37.28x) and the ~25.35x 10-year mean. PEG 3.41 is the set's highest against a 13.25% 3-year EPS growth forecast, even though latest-quarter revenue grew +16.4% YoY (PRIMARY) — the price requires growth to continue, not accelerate, so it is overvalued, not a bubble. The company’s forward P/E is 37.9× against a peer median of 23.9×. Its own history: Trailing P/E at fiscal year-ends FY21-FY25 ranged 24.46-37.28x (FY21 25.91x, FY22 24.46x, FY23 27.79x, FY24 37.28x, FY25 34.11x); 10-year mean ~25.35x, 5-year average ~29.9-31.1x; current trailing 39.82x is above the whole FY21-25 year-end range (SECONDARY). Sector demand read: Sector demand rising in the AI build-out; Apple's delivered growth re-accelerated to +16.4% YoY, but its forecast EPS growth is mid-to-low in the peer set. Latest-quarter sales growth was +16.4% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 27, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple (AAPL) | $347.10 | 37.9× | 39.8× |
| MSFT | $531.33 | 26.9× | 29.6× |
| GOOGL | $320.58 | 23.9× | 16.1× |
| AMZN | $253.10 | 27.2× | 20.4× |
| META | $620.19 | 18.8× | 21.1× |
| NVDA | $217.94 | 18.0× | 27.6× |
| Peer median | 23.9× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
Gross margin = gross profit divided by sales, from SEC filings.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-27 | $109.4B | 50.1% | $29.8B | 2.02 | $31.9B |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-28 | $111.2B | 49.3% | $29.6B | 2.01 | $26.7B |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-27 | $143.8B | 48.2% | $42.1B | 2.84 | $51.6B |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-27 | $102.5B | 47.2% | $27.5B | — | $26.5B |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-28 | $94.0B | 46.5% | $23.4B | 1.57 | $24.4B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-29 | $95.4B | 47.0% | $24.8B | 1.65 | $20.9B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-28 | $124.3B | 46.9% | $36.3B | 2.40 | $27.0B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-28 | $94.9B | 46.2% | $14.7B | — | $23.9B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-29 | $85.8B | 46.3% | $21.4B | 1.40 | $26.7B |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-30 | $90.8B | 46.6% | $23.6B | 1.53 | $20.7B |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-30 | $119.6B | 45.9% | $33.9B | 2.18 | $37.5B |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $89.5B | 45.2% | $23.0B | — | $19.4B |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | Apple Inc. |
| Chief executive | John Ternus (source: https://www.macobserver.com/news/apple-new-ceo-ternus-cook-executive-chairman/) |
| Sector | Technology — Consumer technology — smartphones, personal computing, wearables and services |
| Share price (Oct 27, 2026) | $347.10 |
| Market value (market cap) | $5.07T — share price times shares outstanding of 14,594,180,000 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $466.8B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $128.9B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $136.7B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +158.68% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -33.4% (2024-12-26 to 2025-04-08) |
What we could not verify
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from SEC EDGAR company facts (standalone Q4 EPS not tagged); trailing P/E is from the labelled secondary source only
- Forward P/E by fiscal year from stockanalysis.com: ratios/financial-history pages fetched Oct 28, 2026 did not expose a forward-P/E-by-year row in text, and a follow-up open hit a browser 429 rate limit and was not retried; own-history context uses trailing period-end P/E from other named SECONDARY sources
- CEO transition sourced to a MacObserver summary of Apple's Apr 20, 2026 Newsroom announcement (corroborated by Simply Wall St profile); Apple's Newsroom release itself was not fetched directly
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000320193.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/AAPL/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.