Answer: As of May 12th, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) replaced Apple as the largest publicly-traded company at around $500 billion dollars. As this Quartz article notes (and the graph above demonstrates), this is more a case of Apple losing value than Alphabet surpassing them.

From Quartz:

More importantly, the story isn’t about the rise of Google but rather the astronomical amount of shareholder value that Apple has destroyed over the past year. Apple’s market value, as tallied by data provider FactSet, has declined by more than $100 billion—with a “B”!—in less than a month. But that’s nothing. Last May, Apple’s market value was around $750 billion. People were talking about its potential to be the first $1 trillion company. Since then, some $250 billion in paper wealth has evaporated.

This can be a a good opportunity to discuss with students the importance of growth expectations in determining the price of a stock. Apple continues to earn oodles of profits, however it is the deceleration in their growth rate (which actually fell in the recent quarter) which has sent their stock into a tailspin.

Clearly, the fact that these two companies are battling it out demonstrates the rise of technology companies. It got me thinking who the largest company has been over the past ten to twenty year. Here is a series of charts from 2000-2016 with the leaders, which include: General Electric, Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, PetroChina.

In case you were curious about the largest public company by state (in 2015), here is an infographic from Visual Capitalist that your students will enjoy:

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.