Stunning transformation of the world’s largest stocks over the past decade-and-a-half. When normalized to global GDP it also illustrates the economic and market power of the largest stocks. The data in the below table show that the the top eight most valuable companies were just 4.4 percent of global GDP in 2005 compared to 12.3 percent today.

Moreover, three of the largest U.S. companies, Microsoft, Google and Facebook do not have supply chains in the traditional sense, which puts downward pressure on labor demand. Even Apple, which outsources most of its production, employs only 140k workers — many of which are lower paid workers in the retail stores — compared to GE’s 320K in 2005, and only 12k employees at its Cupertino campus, where the good paying jobs are located, or were before the pandemic.

By the way,  Carol K., the grown-up in the room at GMM,  just posted a good piece on the economy of the future.  Run, don’t walk to read it, Investing In The Economy Of The Future.

Source: statista