Posted on Sunday, 1st March 2009 by Cheyne
Today we are going to have a quick look at the differences in the top publicly traded companies by market cap. It probably isn’t anything you don’t know already, but it is always good to have it all laid out and exposed.
The top 10 publicly traded companies in the world in 2006, according to Forbes, in Billions of US dollars, were the following:
- 1 ExxonMobil United States – was 362 now 337 result: Even
- 2 General Electric United States - was 348 now 89 result: Down
- 3 Microsoft United States - was 279 now 143 result: Down
- 4 Citigroup United States - was 230 now 8 result: Dead
- 5 BP United Kingdom – was 225 now 121 result: Down
- 6 Royal Dutch Shell Group Netherlands – was 203 now 132 result: Down
- 7 Procter & Gamble United States – was 197 now 141 result: Down
- 8 HSBC Group United Kingdom – was 193 now 88 result: Down
- 9 Pfizer United States – was 192 now 83 result: Down
- 10 Wal-Mart Stores United States – was 188 now 193 result: Up
- 11 Saudi Basic Industries Saudi Arabia – was 184 now 112 result: Down
- 12 Gazprom Russia – was 184 now 310 result: Up
- 13 Bank of America United States – was 184 now 19 result: Dead
- 14 Toyota Motor Japan – was 175 now 99 result: Down
- 15 American International Group United States – was 172 now 1 result: Dead
- 16 PetroChina China – was 172 now 128 result: Down
- 17 Johnson & Johnson United States – was 171 now 138 result: Down
- 18 Total France – was 154 now 105 result: Down
- 19 Altria Group United States – was 149 now 31 result: Down
- 20 GlaxoSmithKline United Kingdom – was 147 now now 76 result: Down
Companies in green made a US Dollar profit, red lost money, black moved sideways. Any red company with result listed as ‘dead’ either went bankrupt or have had the US government bail them out.
Looking at the list closely, there are a few extra things to point out. The benchmark here is the United States dollar, which has declined considerably over the last two years. This means that a company whose stock moved sideways, such as ExxonMobil actually lost money as the $350 billion the business was worth in 2006 was much more than the $350 billion it is now worth.
This is very notable for Russia’s Gazprom, who trades in Moscow and London and mostly exports gas and oil to Europe. Their market capitalization once converted to USD from the Russian Ruble has seen an enormous gain.
ExxonMobil are still doing very well, posting the largest annual profit in world history in 2008, mostly due to the rising cost of crude oil during the year.
The banking sector was obviously hard hit, especially Citibank and Bank of America who were heavily exposed to the sub-prime meltdown and required US government intervention. If the list were longer than 20 we would have seen businesses like Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch and American International Group, which either no longer exist or were sold off amid tumbling stock prices. GM and Ford would have been on there too listed as ‘dead’.
Wal-Mart look to do even better in 2009 as their discount department stores around the United States are only attract more sales and customers when money is tight on main street.
A concerning drop can be observed in General Electric, a holding company whose brands stretch across entertainment, banking, electronics, aviation, defense and industrial machinery, most of which were hard hit, leaving the business in dire times despite their diversification.
What do we look to now? Foreign investments look hot but many of them rely heavily on a strong United States economy. Banking is as low as ever, but just can’t quite bottom out. Industrial production is slowing which in turn slows everything.
We can’t keep shorting the markets forever. My beleif is that once we begin to see signs of the US economy gaining some upward momentum, the futures market will explode, which will in turn see the stocks of solid companies move which will move the Dow Jones Industrial Average up, which will push the economy further. We just need to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves this time around.
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