Maybe you all wasn't able to understand the difference between book value and market value yesterday. | Arshnoor Singh

Maybe you all wasn't able to understand the difference between book value and market value yesterday. Lets' understand that with example of two of the most well reputed and profitable companies i.e. Netflix and Apple.

Netflix filed its third quarter financial statements with the SEC showing assets of about $23.4 billion and liabilities of about $18.4 billion for a book value of about $5 billion. With 436,084,995 outstanding shares at the end of that quarter, the book value per share was only about $11.47.

However, two days prior to the end of the quarter, the market price per share was $374.13 or more than 32 times book value.

Whereas on the other hand Apple reported about $349 billion in assets at the end of the second quarter and about $234 billion in liabilities for a rough book value of $115 billion. About 4.8 billion shares were outstanding at the time, so the book value per share was about $23.96 per share. Apple stock closed on at $185.11 per share.

So while Netflix's book value was less than half of Apple's, its market value was nearly twice Apple's market value in this example, showing how book value doesn't always influence market value.