On Friday, Amazon and Facebook passed Exxon Mobil in market cap in morning trading, continuing to rise up the world’s most valuable companies list.
Exxon- which was down following disappointing second quarter earnings- was quickly overtaken by the retail giant and social networking behemoth at the beginning. Later in the day however, Exxon picked up and ended up closing above Facebook and Amazon in market cap.
As oil prices in the U.S. continue to remain low, Exxon- like rival gas producer, Chevron- has struggled.
Exxon’s stock opened down around 4%, though it picked up slightly and closed down around 1% to $88.95. Its market cap currently sits at $365.96 billion, according to Google Finance.
On Friday morning, Facebook’s surge added to an already impressive week. The company announced on Wednesday, that it had 1.71 billion monthly active users producing $6.44 billion in revenues for the quarter. Once a challenge for Facebook, Mobile, represented 84% of $6.24 billion in advertising revenue.
Subsequently, the company’s stock reached $125.61 on Friday morning- an all-time high
Friday afternoon, however, brought the shares of the social media giant down, and closed at $123.94. Late Thursday, Facebook warned investors that it may get hit with a tax bill between $3 billion and $5 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.
Currently, Facebook’s market cap sits at $359.28 billion
A fluid list of the world most valuable companies is marked by Facebook’s passing of Exxon. Apple ($569.11 billion), Google ($538.95 billion) and Microsoft ($445.69 billion) remain the three largest, but those below it have seen a shuffling. Falling to $355.61 billion, Berkshire Hathaway has been passed by Facebook as well as Amazon who saw its own jump following strong earnings Thursday.
Amazon, at around $365.77 billion, has passed Berkshire Hathaway and Facebook to jump to fifth on the list. On Friday, the stock rose 0.8% to an all-time high of $758.81 at closing.
Alphabet shares closed up 3% at $791.34, while Apple stock went down 0.12% to $104.21.
Having more than a billion daily active users, Facebook is the world’s most famous social media platform. Its sister concerns WhatsApp and Instagram have shown incredible growth in their user bases, with WhatsApp crossing 900 million monthly active users in September 2015. Other than these platforms, Facebook earns through online advertising and applications integrated into its media platform.
On the other hand, Amazon never “stuck to its knitting” or very careful to manage its “core.” In 2001 Amazon was largely an online book seller – and not at all that profitable. Despite its roots being in U.S.retailing, the company has pioneered in off-shore businesses and tech savvy products that help customers take advantage of big trends.
The top five Forbes list companies include Apple at #1, Google at #2, Microsoft at #3, Amazon at #4 and Facebook at #4.
