A decade ago, the five most valuable companies were Exxon, GE, Microsoft, Gazprom and Citigroup. Today, the ranking has radically changed. The top five most valuable companies are in tech: Apple, Alphabet , Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook.
The five tech leaders are pan-company, pan-industry and even pan-country. So, they dominate the physical and material world. For example, materials and energy companies, which constituted almost half of the total value of the S&P 500 in 1957, now account for less than 10%.
Looking back, it wasn’t long ago that huge companies (by the measures of sales and assets), such as GE, GM and ExxonMobil, were the companies considered most valuable by the market. Subsequently, asset behemoths were replaced by financial services giants (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase). In time, services firms fell from the top spots as investors valued intellectual and network capital more than physical capital and services