Earlier, Apple Became the Most Valuable Public Company in the World for a Bit

With the recent stock market collapse and subsequent rally, Apple overtook Exxon as the most valuable public company in the world. Exxon’s market cap and Apple’s market cap fell, but Apple’s fell less, which gave it a lead of about one billion dollars, and as the market caps continued to fall, Apple’s lead grew to about $3.5 billion. However, Apple’s cap began to rise while Exxon’s continued to fall, and Apple’s lead grew to $5 billion with around an hour to go until the market closed, but then with about thirty minutes left, Exxon surged and pulled back ahead to finish off the day.

As of much earlier this morning, the two companies sat only $500 million apart, whereas around three weeks ago, as TechCrunch reports, the two companies were sitting at about $60 billion apart. To put the recent stock market plunge into perspective, about three weeks ago, Exxon’s market cap was $410 billion, and as of much earlier this morning, their market cap was sitting at around $340 billion. A reason for Exxon’s rally back over Apple? Maybe the world realized they needed power instead of Angry Birds delivery platforms.

(via TechCrunch)