Goodbye Steve Jobs

Apple Stock Price Since 1984

Apple's stock was IPO'ed on December 12, 1980 at $22/share.  On a split-adjusted basis, that's $2.75/share.  Apple closed yesterday at around $378/share for an annualized return of +17.8%/year.

Pretty incredible given the long period that Apple went nowhere and did nothing (after they fired Jobs until he came back).

The above chart shows a dark rectangle as the black hole period of Apple when Steven Jobs was not there; he was fired in May 1985 and came back as interim CEO in September of 1997.   During those dark years, APPL returned 7%/year or so.

So to be fair to Jobs, let's look at his return only when he was there.

The stock IPO was at $2.75 in December 1980 and Jobs was fired in May 1985 when the stock price was $2.52/share for a return of -2%/year for those 4.4 years.  And then he came back in September 1997 when the stock price was at $5.42.  Since then to yesterday, the stock returned +35%/year.

Combining those two periods, you get a Jobs-tenure stock price performance of +27%/year.  Amazing.

(This is an investment blog so I am focusing on the stock price, but this is of course not Job's biggest contribution to the world at all!)

We lost a great one last night.