Google Passes Exxon As 2nd Most Valuable Company In The U.S.

Google

At least based on market value, Google has now passed Exxon Mobil as the nation’s second most valuable company:

Google passed Exxon Mobil on Friday to become the second largest company in the United States by market value.

The search engine giant has a market capitalization of almost $395 billion, compared to a market value of about $392 billion for Exxon.

Apple, worth about $465 billion, is the most valuable company in the U.S.

Shares of Google  are on a tear, having risen 52% in the past year. The tech conglomerate has continued to thrive even as more mature tech companies such as Microsoft, . IBM, Oracle, and Cisco  struggle to find new growth opportunities.

But Google’s stock isn’t necessarily cheap, trading at more than 22 times earnings estimates for 2014.

Exxon on the other hand, trades for less than 12 times projected profits for this year. The company did not benefit from last year’s bull run for stocks. Shares are up a mere 2% from a year ago. The oil giant, along with many other energy companies, have lagged the broader market due to relatively low oil prices.

The question now, of course, is whether Google’s current momentum could be enough to propel it past Apple. As the article notes, it’s not entirely out of the question. While Google’s stock price has been on a tear of late thanks to solid earnings news, Apple’s stock has been in a slump due to what investors have perceived as disappointing numbers. At this point, it wouldn’t take much growth on the part of Google, combined with a decline in Apple’s share press, to push the search engine company to the top of the list even if it’s only a temporary phenomenon.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. john personna says:

    And anyone with a Total Market Index Fund benefited (he said, to remind stock-pickers that you can manage these things in your sleep).

  2. grumpy realist says:

    Speaking of Apple, they put the kibosh on the last bitcoin wallet App. in the iPhone store and all the bitcoiners are up in arms about how this shows Apple is in a conspiracy with the government to destroy bitcoin.

    Which, considering the triad of disasters that hit bitcoin this last week (Russian NYET!, MtGox’s total shutdown, and MtGox’s claim that they found a technical bug in the cryptocurrency which allows double-dipping), bitcoin seems to be doing quite well in the self-destruction sweepstakes on their own.

    The editorials I especially love are the ones who scream how all this shows that Teh Banks Are Losing And Bitcoin is Winning because otherwise they wouldn’t be attacking it that much blah, blah, blah. The fact bitcoin at present is a rounding error on the books at Apple or any bank like Chase just totally flies over their heads.