Drewbot

Like clockwork, analysts are wringing their hands till they bleed when they hear the current size of Apple’s cash hoard ($65.8 billion, for those keeping counting.) Perhaps it’s a knee-jerk reaction from those who make their living spending other people’s money, but I always felt that this anxiety arises because pundits don’t have a model for a company that is on track to hold 1/3rd their market cap in liquid assets.

I don’t think Apple will make a move anytime soon, but such quantities of cash are invaluable when you plan on taking on cable companies, movie studios, and payment companies.

To illustrate how strategically valuable this cash is to Apple (and how big the account actually is), here are a few potentially competitive or strategic companies with market caps less than Apple’s current holdings:

• Viacom: 28.43 billion
• Time Warner: 39.23 billion
• Netflix: 13.03 billion
• Visa: 55.15 billion
• American Express: 55.95 billion

The real gem is currently out of Apple’s reach, but after a few bad days for the Dow or anther quarter they’d overtake them for sure:

• Comcast: 69.07 billion