$4trillion dollars.

SneakySpectator

How the hell can a single company be worth this much money? It's such an absurd amount of money that you can't even relate to it, what does it even mean to have $4trillion of something.

If each dollar was a grain of sand, it would fill 3 class 1 HGV trailers.

And the wildest part is you've got Microsoft just behind at $3.7trillion and Apple at $3.1trillion. 

3 companies from 1 country has a combined valued of $10.8trillion. Even entire countries rarely have to dip into the "trillion" territory, except maybe the US and China. 

The thing I don't really understand is if just Nvidia went up another 1% tomorrow, that would be $40billion of new money just in that 1 stock, where is this money coming from? A 1% increase in Nvidia is equivalent to the entirety of Tesco market cap just in 1 day!

In 2009 I was 20 years old when I first discovered what a stock market was, and looking back, the largest market cap companies were companies like Walmart, Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft and ExxonMobile and they were all in the range of about $150billion - $200billion, with the exception of Exxon which was at about $400b. 

Now just 15 or so years later and $200billion sounds like chump change. In fact $200billion wouldn't even put you in the top 75 anymore.

It really blows my mind. 

Grumpy_chap

The OP might find this thread relevant:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6610899/how-can-1-us-company-be-worth-more-than-the-top-350-uk-companies/p1

I struggle to see how this new thread can add much to the discussion that the previous thread did not.

SneakySpectator

Grumpy_chap said:

The OP might find this thread relevant:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6610899/how-can-1-us-company-be-worth-more-than-the-top-350-uk-companies/p1

I struggle to see how this new thread can add much to the discussion that the previous thread did not.

Because in that post I was comparing those companies to UK companies, now I am comparing those companies to entire countries. For example the entire global military budget of every country combined is only $2.7trillion. 

1 US company has a value that could fund the entire global military of every country for almost 2 years back to back. Wild.

masonic

The comparison is not like for like, because you can't buy shares in a country on a market and part-own it. So we don't know what a country's market value is.

GDP could be considered comparable to corporate earnings. On that basis, with share prices being high multiples of earnings, it is far less dramatic. $4tn becomes $44bn, so would sit between Libya and Paraguay, and it would take about 75 x Nvidias to earn the UK's GDP.

Perhaps the USA should complete its transformation and float on a new stock market with Trump as CEO Billionaires can form an orderly queue to become its shareholders, owners, and therefore voters according to how much money they hand over.

shortseller09

Just Google it

HedgehogRulez

3 truck loads of cash doesnt sound that much! 

LHW99

HedgehogRulez said:

3 truck loads of cash doesnt sound that much! 

Happy to go 50 : 50 on that

SneakySpectator

HedgehogRulez said:

3 truck loads of cash doesnt sound that much! 

Did you miss the part where each $1 is the size of a grain of sand?

Section62

SneakySpectator said:

HedgehogRulez said:

3 truck loads of cash doesnt sound that much! 

Did you miss the part where each $1 is the size of a grain of sand?

I think it could be the "3 class 1 HGV trailers" part which is misdirecting folk.  The correct official British Standard comparison for volumes is to "Olympic-sized swimming pool(s)".

Cus

Everyone investing in passive global indexes (including me) will have around 5% of their money in Nvidia. No one wants to worry about the reality of value whilst they are making paper profits.
Every £1 I put in tomorrow, I will be buying 5p of Nvidia, I don't get a say.

What could possibly go wrong 😁

InvesterJones

Cus said:

Everyone investing in passive global indexes (including me) will have around 5% of their money in Nvidia. No one wants to worry about the reality of value whilst they are making paper profits.
Every £1 I put in tomorrow, I will be buying 5p of Nvidia, I don't get a say.

What could possibly go wrong 😁

If you invest at market cap weightings then you will get market cap proportions. Anything else and you're saying you know better than the rest of the investing consensus, which is of course fine, but that's a deliberate tilt if so. There are some value factor indexes that you might prefer, or small cap.