Apple should shrink its finance arm before it goes bananas

People continue to say Apple makes huge profits. But in reality they have a world wide market share of 20%, with Gross Margin at ~40%, Net Margin ~20%.<p>Both Gross and Net Margin figures have been very consistent over the years, And increasingly many profits are from the financial arms, and other services.<p>One way to look at it, is that despite iPhone has been getting more expensive over the past years, Apple are actually earning less % on each unit.<p>In some ways, this is worrying.

people like to through notional value of derivatives because those numbers look huge but are generally meaningless &quot;the notional value of JPMorgan’s derivative trading could be as high as $70 trillion&quot; makes for a eye catching statement. Apple most likely is holding derivatives to hedge currency risks and their exposure has very little to do with notional value.

What should the corporate tax rate, currently at 35%, drop to, for Apple to repatriate foreign cash?<p>It seems like a no brainier to drop the rate when the alternative is financial skullduggery by the Apple capitals of the world. All while the local mom &amp; pops pay the 35% and bear the financial burden of the nation

Apple has big volume of cash. What exactly is the downside in investing it in riskier assets?

To what extent can Apple leverage internal research to make these investments? They have sales data and supplier numbers for their products... this could be useful not-public information, no?