For a brief time today Apple was the biggest company in the world. According to Wired.com, a boost in stock prices today following a massive sell off on Monday caused Apple to have a market capitalization of $344.21 billion, ahead of oil company Exxon Mobile at $344.09 billion. However, at the close of the stock markets today, Apple's market capitalization came in at 346.74 billion but didn't beat Exxon Mobile's numbers of $348.32 billion.
For those who might not know, a company's "market cap" can be easily figured out by taking the price of a company's stock and multiply it by the total of a company's outstanding shares. Apple is by far the biggest tech company in the world in terms of its market cap; it surpassed Microsoft's numbers in the summer of 2010. Ironically, it is Microsoft, and not Apple, that has a AAA credit rating from Standard and Poor's, one of four US companies that currently holds such a rating (but not the US government).
As we have reported before, Apple not only has a high stock price and a large market cap, it also has a ton of cash that the company is just sitting on at the moment. In its latest financial results, Apple confirmed it has a whopping $76.2 billion in cash on hand that could support the company for several years even if it didn't generate one cent of revenue. In other words, Apple is doing just fine, thank you very much.
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