Kevin Kingsbury:
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.
The fact that Exxon is still number two is the perfect reference point as to just how much things have changed. Or, said another way (coincidentally from 1983):
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