Quiz: Would You Rather Own Apple – Or Both Cisco and Intel?

Here a bit of fun bit of market cap math, perfect for a Monday afternoon.

• Apple (AAPL) now has a market cap of $244.68 billion.
• That’s now about 15% above Microsoft (MSFT), which has a market cap of $213.66 billion.
• The gap between the two is roughly equal to the current market cap of Research In Motion (RIMM), at $29.6 billion; or to look at it another way, MSFT plus RIMM is now about $243.26 billion, almost in line with Apple alone.
• And as coincidence would have it, Intel (INTC) now has a market cap of $114.01 billion, while Cisco (CSCO) has a valuation of $128.9 billion – or on a combined basis, $242.9 billion.

And so here’s my question for you. If you had a limitless supply of capital – enough to spend $250 billion or so buying companies – which would be the better investment for the long haul:

• Apple
• Microsoft plus RIMM
• Intel plus Cisco