With Apple (AAPL) crossing the $1 trillion market cap level last week, below is a chart showing the historical market caps for the four largest S&P 500 stocks at the moment. What an incredible run these four stocks have had over the last ten years!
At the Financial Crisis lows in March 2009, these four stocks had a combined market cap of just $325 billion. Now they combine to make up $3.5 trillion in market cap — more than 10x their total less than ten years ago. At the depths of despair in early 2009, investors were fleeing stocks when they should have been “buying low.” Shoulda, woulda, coulda!
With Apple at a trillion now and Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft all getting close to a trillion, we can only wonder what the next ten years have in store. Looking at the chart, we certainly wouldn’t argue that now is the time to “buy low”! Putting on your “futurist” caps for a moment, if you had to choose, which will be the largest of the four ten years from now, and which will be the smallest?
