Market Capitalization in the Stratosphere

The past several months, the past couple of years, in general, have been pretty good for the broad stock market – especially for tech related stocks. We are now at a point where there are at least 3 stocks that are worth more than $3 trillion (that’s the #3 followed by 12 zeroes). Allowing for daily fluctuations of rather minor amounts – 100 billion here or there doesn’t really amount to all that much – we have Nivida, at 3.4 trillion, Apple at $3.9 trillion and Microsoft at $3.3 trillion. I don’t know about you, but from where I come from, that’s a lot of money. Actually, from where I come from, that's the entire neighborhood, with leftovers.

Now what makes this interesting, among many other things, and the purpose for this article, is to make a rough comparison of the value of each of those 3 companies (keep in mind, they are just companies) to the value of the entire stock market of selected countries. Note that all these values are as of around the current time. With that in mind, the value of the entire stock market of the following countries is (in trillions):

• Great Britain 3.3

• France 3.0

• Germany 2.3

• Switzerland 2.0

• Netherlands 1.0

• Italy 0.7

• Sudan 0



At the risk of redundancy, keep in mind that this comparison is between individually 3 companies vs. the entire value of the stock market of the countries above. Of further interest in this example, the 3 companies combined have a market value that is approximately the same as the combined value of the entire stock markets of Britain, France, Germany & Switzerland. In a crude sense, we could swap Microsoft and get in exchange the country of France. But really – other than to have bragging rights to runny yellow mustard, trans fat laden fries and germ infested sloppy kissing – who would want that?

If you have any questions contact Kal Barson at kal@barsongroup.com.