I probably have mentioned before that I really love making these lists (so that’s why I’m making another one)! My previous list on the top 100 companies with the largest market cap is now outdated… So, for those of you wanting to know who are the top richest companies traded on the US markets in 2012, here’s an updated list:

Several things to note:

• Exxon is still the #1 company in market capitalization, although something tells me that it will be dethroned by Apple in the next few weeks (if not days).
• The market capitaliztion of the first company in this list (Exxon) has increased by 37% from the last time I created this list back in the summer of 2011.
• The 3 Canadian banks that were in this list last year still made it this year to the top 100 (although last year they were doing better).
• McDonald’s jumped 15 places in just 7 months. Expect this stock to do even better this year, unless a scandal hits their chain or the fast food industry in general.
• Both Microsoft and IBM climbed 2 places, while Google jumped 7 places.
• Bank of America fell 28 places to position #65, while Citigroup fell 19 places to position #53. The gap between the two banks is widening, although both are not doing great these days.

Please note that the above list is based on data coming from Yahoo finance, which sometimes has a completely different data than that coming from Google Finance. For example, Google Finance states that the market capitalization of China Southern Airlines Company is something like $6.2 billion, while Yahoo finance states that the market cap of this same company is $267 billion, making it one of the top 5 companies in the US markets when it comes to market capitalization. This is not the first time that I see a huge discrepancy between the numbers on Google Finance and those on Yahoo Finance. As Pius says to Lord Voldermort in the beginning of Harry Potter 7 – Part 1: “One hears many things my lord – whether the truth is among them it is not clear…” Or something like that!

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