Apple’s Juice

Setting my own political ideologies aside, it is curious that a publicly-traded company is donating money to oppose California’s Proposition 8 amid one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression.
 
A measly $100,000 may not seem like a lot of money to Apple, which has annual revenues in the tens of billions of dollars. But is the company sending the right message to the Street when volatility is at an unprecedented high?
 
Such actions beg the question whether public companies are obligated to take a neutral stance on political issues for the sake of a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.  In some ways, it seems unfair to contribute to any campaign at the risk of alienating shareholders who invest in a company for their products, not their politics.

— Evan Pondel, Vice President, epondel@pondel.com