Nathan Donato-Weinstein, who covers real estate for the Silicon Valley Business Journal, has the scoop: Apple has signed a deal to occupy a second spaceship-like building in Sunnyvale, Calif., 3 miles north of the one still under construction in Cupertino.
The eye-catching part of the deal are the architects’ renderings, which you can see at notanotherbox.com.
What resonates for me is this paragraph in Donato-Weinstein’s piece:
“The transaction is another sign—as if you need any more—of Apple’s tremendous expansion, potentially providing enough room for more than 3,000 workers. The deal comes as Apple has made a huge land-grab in recent months in parts of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and, more recently, north San Jose, where it has spent $300 million to assemble nearly 70 acres. The expansion dovetails with the growth of Apple’s product pipeline, with the next big category rumored to be the electric automobile.”
Does this look like a company that has stopped growing?
I see the second spaceship as a symbol of the disconnect between Apple the company, which is growing like gangbusters, and AAPL the stock, which is valued like the S&P 500’s poor relative
Since September 2012, three years and four iPhones ago (or six iPhones, depending how you count), the S&P 500 is up 38% while Apple’s share price has risen only 15.8%.
According to Mr. Market, the stock’s future is no brighter.
11.8: Apple’s forward P/E
16.6: S&P 500’s forward P/E
Am I missing something here? Does anybody really believe that in the next 12 months Apple’s performance among these 500 companies is going to be somewhere in the back of the middle of the pack?
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
