Rather than pay out cash – which Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller proved to be financially irrelevant as long ago as 1958 – Apple should have announced the following on Monday.

Dear Apple shareholder, do you know how you are going to die? Neither do we. On this day when you are feeling on top of the world it is easy to forget that every company rises and falls. Returns always fade. Something comes out of the blue and knocks you off your perch. Facebook, Twitter and Google did not even exist 20 years ago. Back then, your beloved Apple was worth $5bn. Today our market capitalisation is $560bn. Can you see the future?

That is precisely why we have been building up our cash pile during the good times. But now that we are the biggest company on earth, we shall be spending every cent of that money to make sure we stay that way. We have as little idea as you do where the threat to our future will come from. But the $98bn of cash and marketable securities at our disposal means that we are able to cover more potential threats than any of our rivals.