Comment on Microsoft lost $357 billion in market cap as stock plunged most since 2020

mintiefresh@piefed.ca ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• tal@lemmy.today ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Ehhh…that’s their market capitalization, not their cash in hand.

  That’s just what the company is worth, taking into account what investors are currently willing to pay for ownership of shares in the company.

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  • avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They can turn their market cap into liquid cash by borrowing against it. They can also pay directly in stock. E.g. how some pay their employees with more stock than salary. They can use their stock to buy other firms. The stock price and therefore market cap is not just an abstract number.

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    • jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s not just an abstract number, but leveraging it changes the value. If they hypothetically tried to leverage 2 trillion with of their stock, it wouldn’t be worth 2 trillion.

      Of course the needle would probably barely move if they tried to leverage 50 billion.

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      • avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Exactly. They can’t get anything they want out of it but they can get a lot. Especially if it’s moving upwards.

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