Facebook Inc (FB) Market Cap Boosts It To Fourth Largest Company

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While oil may allow for you to start your car, present prices have it taking a backseat to tech companies. While Exxon’s stock is getting hammered by oil prices at a number unseen in decades, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s near perfect earnings reporting saw it pick up 16% in a single day and surpass Exxon‘s market cap as the two companies move in opposite directions.

Post earnings spike from Facebook (FB)

On Wednesday last week, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s market capitalization sat at roughly $267 billion. Following a stellar quarterly earning report, the company closed the day valued at $311 billion. That gain of over $40 billion dollars was, to put it in perspective, essentially adding DuPont or Netflix to the company’s balance sheet (Netflix’s market cap on Thursday last was $40.6 billion)

With the big move, which is now over 20% since last week’s reporting, not only did Facebook surpass Exxon but its chief, Mark Zuckerberg, leapfrogged the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch to firmly place him in the position of the sixth wealthiest person in the world.Apple, by market capitalization, remained the biggest company in the world. However, since then Google, now Alphabet, has supplanted them as the biggest company in the world. Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook is your top four as of this writing.

Exxon to sixth

Exxon and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway are essentially level in the fight for fifth, but while both have lost over 13.5% in the last 12 months the nod goes to Berkshire at $312 billion while Exxon comes in at $310 billion.

If Apple can impress in March when it unveils new products it may well return to the acme of market capitalization but Alphabet has enough in its pipeline that Apple’s performance might not ever be able to return to its roost.

Microsoft remains firmly cemented in the third position with little chance of giving up its bronze medal anytime soon. Facebook, following its disastrous IPO, has gained 52.8% over the last year as of yesterday. It’s hard to see them continuing on that trajectory but stranger things have happened.

Exxon remains a massive company but until oil prices return to a number that doesn’t have Americans returning to SUVs and gas under $2.00, this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

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