美国数据调查机构Asymco的分析师贺拉斯•德迪乌近日奔赴伦敦会见了几十位买方分析师。可别弄混了，我们说的可不是卖方分析师。这些人掌控着数万亿美元的投资款项，平时莫测高深，从不在致客户函中透露他们的想法或投资策略。

    这些基金持有苹果公司（Apple）70%的股票。德迪乌见过这些分析师后得出的结论是：它们对该苹果股票的估值即苹果现有产品的估值加总，仅此而已。

    2005年iPod热卖时，苹果股价上涨；2006年销售下滑时，苹果股价出现下跌。2007年受iPhone前景激励，苹果股价再度上涨；2008年和2009年又出现大跌。

    “尽管股价起起落落，”周一德迪乌在《创新有没有价值？》（Is Innovation Valuable）一文中写道，“但市场的投资理念却一直相当连贯：苹果旗下只有很小的一个产品阵营。持有苹果股票，即意味着要依托于iPod、iPhone或iPad的销售增长。只要其中某一款产品的销售增长显现疲态，投资者就会说：苹果完了。”

    “我对这个投资理念感到好奇的地方，”他写道，“不在于它对苹果公司增长迹象的解读是否正确，而在于2006年的时候，投资者将苹果视为一家iPod 公司，而今又将其视为一家iPhone公司，两种判断都被视为完全理性。为什么对苹果的判断变了，人们还会继续买入苹果？当然，没有证据显示苹果还会使人作出别的判断。任何基金管理公司如果敢于提出其他不同的观点，肯定会损害自身的信誉。”

    德迪乌说，以这种方式看待苹果，就如同仅仅根据皮克斯动画（Pixar）最新影片的票房来对这家制作公司进行估值，就好像皮克斯根本不是一部专门打造热门影片的商业机器。

    “除非能说服大多数人相信，苹果就像皮克斯一样，都是热门产品的批量制造者，”德迪乌总结说。“否则，离开了这些具体的产品，市场对苹果其内在价值的估值依然为零。”

    苹果是全球最具创新能力的公司之一，然而这些举足轻重的投资者对它的看法真是让人大开眼界。

    Asymco's Horace Dediu spent much a recent trip to London talking to dozens of buy-side analysts. Not to be confused with sell-side analysts, these are people who control trillions of investment dollars and never share their thoughts or strategies in notes to clients.

    He came out of those meetings convinced that the investment thesis of the funds that control 70% of Apple's (AAPL) shares is that the company is a sum of its current product line and nothing more.

    The stock went up in 2005 when the iPod was hot and fell in 2006 when it looked like sales were fading. It rose in 2007 on the promise of the iPhone and collapsed in 2008 and 2009.

    "Throughout this volatile period," Dediu wrote Monday in a post entitled Is Innovation Valuable, "the investment thesis remained fairly constant: Apple is a rather small collection of product bets. Owning Apple meant riding the iPod or the iPhone or the iPad as waves of growth. As soon as one growth wave was seen to start to fade, investors would say the same thing: Apple is done."

    "What intrigues me about this investment thesis," he writes, "is not whether the signals of growth are interpreted correctly or not, but rather that an investor in Apple in 2006 was considered perfectly rational valuing Apple as an iPod company as much as an investor today is perfectly rational valuing Apple as an iPhone company. Why would anyone buy Apple for any other reason? There is no evidence that Apple can be anything more. Any fund manager positing a different point of view would surely be limiting her credibility."

    Looking at Apple this way, he says, is like valuing Pixar on the box office sales of its current movie -- as if the studio weren't a hit-making machine.

    "Until and unless an explanation is available that persuades a majority that Apple is as much a hit factory as Pixar," Dediu concludes, "then Apple without the products will intrinsically be valued at zero."

    It's an eye-opening look at how powerful investors see one of the world's most innovative companies.