Earnings season is set to spark a reshuffle among the ranks of America’s largest companies.
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN,
is on the verge of overtaking Alphabet Inc. GOOG,
GOOGLE,
and become the third-largest U.S. public company at Friday’s close, after its results were well received by Wall Street and Alphabet’s results earlier in the week were panned. The race is tight, however, with Amazon recently having a $1.78 trillion valuation based on intraday action and Alphabet having a market capitalization of $1.77 trillion.
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According to Dow Jones market data, the e-commerce giant has not been valued higher than Google’s parent company since September 30, 2022. That was also the last time Amazon was the third largest by market capitalization.
Wall Street found a lot of positive in Amazon’s latest report, including a dramatic improvement in operating profit, upbeat commentary on the cloud and momentum in the retail sector. Meanwhile, Alphabet’s earnings received a cooler reception as the company talked about heavy spending plans tied to its artificial intelligence ambitions.
Alphabet’s stock, however, is closer to its all-time high than Amazon’s. Shares of parent company Google fell 3.5% from their closing high of $153.51, set on Jan. 29. Amazon shares are down 7.8% from a record high of $186.57, set in July 2021.
The top of the charts in terms of market capitalization have also changed lately, although certainly with less of a link to earnings. Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT,
the final rating surpassed Apple Inc.’s AAPL,
on January 12 for the first time since November 2021. While the two held the top spot in January, Microsoft has been there since January 25.
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Microsoft also remains alone in the $3 trillion club, while Apple, the only other US company to ever claim membership, has left it.
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