As the iPhone-maker’s shares continue to set fresh record highs, its market cap is now above $765 billion. Combined with Exxon Mobil Corp.’s pullback over the past six months, Apple has pulled off the rare occurrence of being worth at least double any other publicly traded U.S. company. No. 2 Exxon’s market cap has eased to $374 billion.
On a year-end basis, the last time the biggest company by market value was worth at least double the second-largest was 30 years ago, says S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Howard Silverblatt. At the conclusion of 1983, 1984 and 1985, International Business Machines Corp.’s market cap was more than twice Exxon, which ended each of those years in second place. At its widest year-end point back then, IBM was worth 140% more than Exxon.
Three decades hence, the most-valuable company is worth more than 10 times that and is a 30% stock jump from becoming the first trillion-dollar company.
Exxon in late 2008 was nearly double the market cap of the then-No. 2s, which alternated between Microsoft Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, as Exxon help up better than most stocks amid the financial crisis.
Since Apple first got past Exxon in 2011, the company has largely held the top spot uninterrupted. But it really wasn’t until last summer that Tim Cook’s outfit put substantial, consistent room between it and Exxon. That gap has only grown further in 2015 with Apple up 19% and Exxon falling 3.7%.
