Who’s biggest?
Press play: ten years of the biggest US companies, from their own filings.
- AAPL
- MSFT
- NVDA
- GOOGL
- AMZN
- META
- TSLA
As filed with the SEC, in USD. Each quarter shows only what had been published by then; profit is the trailing twelve months.
Did the price grow faster than the business?
- NVDAPaying 4.3x less per $1 of profit
- GOOGLPaying 1.9x less per $1 of profit
- AAPLPaying 1.3x more per $1 of profit
- AMZNPaying 3.0x less per $1 of profit
- METAAbout the same per $1 of profit
- MSFTPaying 1.3x less per $1 of profit
- TSLAPaying 1.3x more per $1 of profit
Paying more means the market cap grew faster than profit, so the P/E went up. It says nothing about whether that was deserved. Not investment advice.
Where the numbers come from
Revenue, profit and EPS are what each company reported to the SEC in its 10-K and 10-Q filings, added up over the last twelve months. A quarter shows a figure only from the day it was first filed, so the race never knows something early.
Market cap is the day’s closing price times the diluted share count, with both on the same stock-split basis. P/E is market cap divided by twelve months of profit; a company losing money has no P/E. Alphabet reports its share count per share class, so its count is profit divided by EPS for the same year.
US companies that file with the SEC only. A company with no share count we can trust shows its revenue and profit but no market cap, and says so.