Comment on Microsoft lost $357 billion in market cap as stock plunged most since 2020
tal@lemmy.today 15 hours agoEhhh…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.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 15 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.
jj4211@lemmy.world 11 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.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 11 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.