The Race to A Trillion
Courtesy of Michael Batnick
In the last 92 trading sessions, Amazon has added $304,512,850,704 to its market capitalization.
Not that $300 billion in 92 days needs context, but here’s some anyway: This is more than Amazon was worth in April 2016, not even two years ago. This is bigger than every company in the S&P 500 with the exception of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, and Exxon Mobil. Amazon added more to its market cap in 92 days than it did in its first 5,147 days as a public company.
In thinking about the race to the first trillion dollar company, I just assumed it would be Apple, nothing else was even on my radar. The first time Apple hit the 3/4 trillion mark, it was twice as large as any U.S. company. They were twice as big as Google, and 4.4 times larger than Amazon.
Before Amazon’s third quarter, results which sent the stock up 13% ($62 billion) in a single day, Apple’s market cap was $837 billion, while Amazon’s was $468 billion. Today, Apple’s stands at $923B while Amazon is $773 billion. It’s incredible how quickly the gap is shrinking.
To reach the $1 trillion mark, Amazon needs to gain 29% (it’s up 64.4% in the past 92 sessions). Apple would have to gain just 8% to reach the cuatro commas club (probably a little more because of its share repurchase program. Amazon hasn’t bought back stock since 2012).
No U.S. company has ever hit $1 trillion before, but there have been several that, inflation adjusted, have reached that mark, according to Visual Capitalist.
I’d still guess Apple gets there before Amazon does, but either way, we might never again see a giant stock move like Amazon has over the past 92 days. While Amazon has never looked cheap by traditional metrics, compared to the Dutch East India Company, Amazon looks like a bargain.
