1. Much of it is held overseas so treating it as one big lump sum is incorrect and silly.<p>2, Leverage for loans and bonds.<p>3, Purchases, not of companies - of supply lines. They are the best in the industry at that.<p>4, Buybacks of stock (see 2)<p>5. Continued survival should the market change drastically and they lose their core profitable business (iPhone).<p>6. R&amp;D and manufacture of new product lines. Cars, TVs, whatever. Takes capital - then also requires expenditure to lock up supplies (see 3)<p>5 is especially important as they&#x27;ve been there before - they want the ability to still move strongly even if they are not profitable in the same way.<p>Basically it&#x27;s a 10-20 year view rather than Wall Street&#x27;s 1-3 year view (and I&#x27;m being charitable, Wall Street is more like a 3-12month view most of the time, at least with Tech stocks)