Is AAPL's Loss GOOG's Gain?

Although GOOG refuses to directly monetize its dominant position in mobile, one might expect that any lost market cap for AAPL might be gobbled up by GOOG because the two are an effective duopoly in smartphone operating systems.  Below is a chart of the change in market cap for AAPL and GOOG since November 16.  Since then GOOG has gained $40B in market cap as AAPL has lost $65B.  

Note: I chose to start the chart on November 16 rather than AAPL's September high because that's when the S&P 500 bottomed after a 5% pullback.  I reasoned that this time period was less influenced by beta.

FB vs. GOOG operating cash flow

Facebook announced that it will be encroaching into Google's territory with improved search functionality.  Even though the companies' market caps imply that they are close enough in size for it to be a fair fight, GOOG has a major advantage over FB in that the cash flow generated by its business is about 10x the size of FB's.  Of course it's not impossible for David to fell Goliath, but the odds are not stacked in FB's favor.

UPDATE: This probably helps explain why FB felt it would be wise to partner with MSFT which does $31B in annual cash flow (and a toehold in search) but has also had a difficult time with execution for the better part of a decade.

If this were two countries going to war here's some similar match ups based on relative GDPs:

US vs. Spain

China vs. Turkey

UK vs. Singapore

Canada vs. Kazakhstan

PE Multiple Expansion of Largest S&P 500 Companies

The S&P 500 is up 15% year to date, but earnings are forecast to grow 3-5% this year, which mathematically means that we've experienced some multiple expansion during 2012.  Below is a chart highlighting the multiple expansion for the 10 largest S&P 500 companies so far this year.  Of the 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 (to start the year) only one, XOM, has seen multiple contraction on a TTM basis.

The average P/E multiple of these 10 companies has expanded from 14 to 16 during 2012.