Originally posted by: astroview
ummm MisterCornell... market Cap is a function of stock price and the total number of shares outstanding. So there is at least a relation.
True it's not a ratio or comparison like price to earnings or price to book, but stilll market cap bears looking at. Small caps often languish even with low P/Es. And they have some more trouble getting financing, but they can rise very quickly. Market Cap is something I would consider before investing.
Yeah, no sh|t. I've been to college and taken the finance/economics classes.
The OP's logic seems to be, stock A has a lower market capitalization than stock B, and since both of them are in the same industry, stock A has room to catch up with B, therefore, if I buy A, it's stock price will rise. That is some really hairbrained logic. Stocks don't go around "catching up" with other stocks in the same industry. If that was true, all businesses in the same industry would have the same market capitalization, because people would anticipate the small cap companies "catching up" with the big caps in the long term, so they would buy all the small caps and dump the big caps until they were worth the same.
All I'm saying is that I think you need to delve into AMD and Intel's financial statements to see why each is valued the way they are. AMD has a P/E of 35, and a fordward P/E of 20 (which is better, but the company has a history of volatility, so it may increase again). It's not exactly a strong value stock pick.