An Update on the Trillion-Dollar Market Cap Race
Originally, the game was to become the first company with a trillion-dollar market capitalization. Apple won that race in August, and Amazon came in second in September.
After a brutal October for stock markets and tech stocks especially, the next phase of the game appears to be who can stay a trillion-dollar company and for how long.
Apple was still barely hanging on to its trillion-dollar status at the end of the trading day Friday, after a disappointing earnings report Thursday afternoon that included a big miss on iPhone sales, a softer-than-expected forecast for the next quarter, and news that it would start hiding iPhone, Mac and iPad unit sales numbers in future earnings reports. Apple did dip below the trillion-dollar mark during trading Friday but recovered.
Amazon fell out of the exclusive trillion-dollar club weeks ago, and its market cap was around $815 billion on Friday.
All of which leaves Microsoft, sitting at $810 billion on Friday, very much in the top tier of highly valued tech companies with a shot at the trillion-dollar tier. Other contenders include Alphabet (Google) at $741 billion and Facebook at $434 billion.
Unlike the others, Microsoft has largely escaped the fake news, privacy and labor scandals of the last few months, and seems to be sinking on broad market trends rather than fundamentals or investor dissatisfaction.
We'll stay tuned.
Posted by Scott Bekker on 11/02/2018 at 2:22 PM