Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are in a tight race to become the world’s most valuable public company. The three have bounced that title around over the past few trading days, while each closed with a market cap over $860 billion. Microsoft surpassed Apple in market cap on Friday, though Apple took the lead again with a market cap of $877 billion. Amazon came in a close second at $866 billion, followed by Microsoft with $860 billion.

This three-way race intensified as the tech sector began seeing an upswing from October declines, in addition to the White House’s announcement of a 90-day trade truce with China on Saturday.Since August, when Apple became the first publicly traded company in the U.S. to reach $1 trillion in market cap,  the stocks have been closely watched. Nearly a month later, Amazon reached the same milestone before markets closed, ending just below $1 trillion.

Microsoft’s lead on Friday signaled a major shift in the tech sector, since the company hasn’t closed a year in the top seat since 2002, while it hasn’t become the most valuable tech stock since 2010. Apple and Amazon have been the two front-runners regarding market cap size, however, recent setbacks at the companies provided Microsoft an advantage to catch up.

Apple announced during its fourth-quarter 2018 earnings call that it would no longer disclose iPhone unit sales, sparking investors to worry that the company is getting ready for a significant drop-off in sales of its flagship product.

Amazon also saw a similar sell-off after “delivering weak guidancein its third-quarter 2018 earnings report,” CNBC reports. The company expected $2.1 billion to $3.6 billion in fourth-quarter operating income, which is far below what Street estimated of $3.9  billion for the quarter that spans the holiday season.

Leave a Reply