Markets
The Most Valuable Companies of All-Time
Chart: The Most Valuable Companies of All-Time
The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
Before speculative bubbles could form around Dotcom companies (late-1990s) or housing prices (mid-2000s), some of the first financial bubbles formed from the prospect of trading with faraway lands.
Looking back, it’s pretty easy to see why.
Companies like the Dutch East India Company (known in Dutch as the VOC, or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) were granted monopolies on trade, and they engaged in daring voyages to mysterious and foreign places. They could acquire exotic goods, establish colonies, create military forces, and even initiate wars or conflicts around the world.
Of course, the very nature of these risky ventures made getting any accurate indication of intrinsic value nearly impossible, which meant there were no real benchmarks for what companies like this should be worth.
Speculative Peak
The Dutch East India Company was established as a charter company in 1602, when it was granted a 21-year monopoly by the Dutch government for the spice trade in Asia. The company would eventually send over one million voyagers to Asia, which is more than the rest of Europe combined.
However, despite its 200-year run as Europe’s foremost trading juggernaut – the speculative peak of the company’s prospects coincided with Tulip Mania in Holland in 1637.
Widely considered the world’s first financial bubble, the history of Tulip Mania is a fantastic story in itself. During this frothy time, the Dutch East India Company was worth 78 million Dutch guilders, which translates to a whopping $7.9 trillion in modern dollars.
This is according to sources such as Alex Planes from The Motley Fool, who has conducted extensive research on the history of very large companies in history.
Modern Comparisons
The peak value of the Dutch East India Company was so high, that it puts modern economies to shame.
In fact, at its height, the Dutch East India Company was worth roughly the same amount as the GDPs of modern-day Japan ($4.8T) and Germany ($3.4T) added together.
Even further, in today’s chart, we added the market caps of 20 of the world’s largest companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, and Wells Fargo. All of them combined gets us to $7.9 trillion.
At the same time, the world’s most valuable company (Apple) only makes it to 11% of the peak value of the Dutch East India Company by itself.
Historic Heavyweights
Despite the speculation that fueled the run-up of Dutch East India Company shares, the company was still successful in real terms. At one point, it even had 70,000 employees – a massive accomplishment for a company born over 400 years ago.
The same thing can’t be said for the other two most valuable companies in history – both of which were the subject of simultaneous bubbles occurring in France and Britain that popped in 1720.
In France, the wealth of Louisiana was exaggerated in a marketing scheme for the newly formed Mississippi Company, and its value temporarily soared to the equivalent of $6.5 trillion today. Meanwhile, a joint-stock company in Britain, known as the South Sea Company, was granted a monopoly to trade with South America. It was eventually worth $4.3 trillion in modern currency.
Interestingly, both would barely engage in any actual trade with the Americas.
The other historic heavyweights included in our chart?
- Saudi Aramco, at $4.1 trillion, based on calculations by University of Texas finance professor Sheridan Titman in 2010, and adjusted for inflation.
- PetroChina surpassed $1 trillion in market cap in 2007. Adjusted for inflation that’s $1.4 trillion today.
- Standard Oil, before its famous breakup due to monopolistic reasons, was worth at least $1 trillion. Adjusted for inflation it would likely be more, but we kept this conservative.
- Microsoft reached its peak valuation in 1999, at the top of the Dotcom Bubble. Today, that would be equal to $912 billion.
Markets
The Top Google Searches Related to Investing in 2022
What was on investors’ minds in 2022? Discover the top Google searches and how the dominant trends played out in portfolios.


The Top Google Searches Related to Investing in 2022
It was a turbulent year for the markets in 2022, with geopolitical conflict, rising prices, and the labor market playing key roles. Which stories captured investors’ attention the most?
This infographic from New York Life Investments outlines the top Google searches related to investing in 2022, and offers a closer look at some of the trends.
Top Google Searches: Year in Review
We picked some of the top economic and investing stories that saw peak search interest in the U.S. each month, according to Google Trends.
Month of Peak Interest | Search Term |
---|---|
January | Great Resignation |
February | Russian Stock Market |
March | Oil Price |
April | Housing Bubble |
May | Value Investing |
June | Bitcoin |
July | Recession |
August | Inflation |
September | US Dollar |
October | OPEC |
November | Layoffs |
December | Interest Rate Forecast |
Data based on exact searches in the U.S. from December 26, 2021 to December 18, 2022.
Let’s look at each quarter in more detail, to see how these top Google searches were related to activity in the economy and investors’ portfolios.
Q1 2022
The start of the year was marked by U.S. workers quitting their jobs in record numbers, and the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war. For instance, the price of crude oil skyrocketed after the war caused supply uncertainties. Early March’s peak of $125 per barrel was a 13-year high.
Date | Closing Price of WTI Crude Oil (USD/Barrel) |
---|---|
January 2, 2022 | $76 |
March 3, 2022 | $125 |
December 29, 2022 | $80 |
While crude oil lost nearly all its gains by year-end, the energy sector in general performed well. In fact, the S&P 500 Energy Index gained 57% over the year compared to the S&P 500’s 19% loss.
Q2 2022
The second quarter of 2022 saw abnormal house price growth, renewed interest in value investing, and a bitcoin crash. In particular, value investing performed much better than growth investing over the course of the year.
Index | Price Return in 2022 |
---|---|
S&P 500 Value Index | -7.4% |
S&P 500 Growth Index | -30.1% |
Value stocks have typically outperformed during periods of rising rates, and 2022 was no exception.
Q3 2022
The third quarter was defined by worries about a recession and inflation, along with interest in the rising U.S. dollar. In fact, the U.S. dollar gained against nearly every major currency.
Currency | USD Appreciation Against Currency (Dec 31 2020-Sep 30 2022) |
---|---|
Japanese Yen | 40.1% |
Chinese Yuan | 9.2% |
Euro | 25.1% |
Canadian Dollar | 7.2% |
British Pound | 22.0% |
Australian Dollar | 18.1% |
Higher interest rates made the U.S. dollar more attractive to investors, since it meant they would get a higher return on their fixed income investments.
Q4 2022
The end of the year was dominated by OPEC cutting oil production, high layoffs in the tech sector, and curiosity about the future of interest rates. The Federal Reserve’s December 2022 economic projections offer clues about the trajectory of the policy rate.
2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Longer Run | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Minimum Projection | 4.9% | 3.1% | 2.4% | 2.3% |
Median Projection | 5.1% | 4.1% | 3.1% | 2.5% |
Maximum Projection | 5.6% | 5.6% | 5.6% | 3.3% |
The Federal Reserve expects interest rates to peak in 2023, with rates to remain elevated above pre-pandemic levels for the foreseeable future.
The Top Google Searches to Come
After a year of volatility across asset classes, economic uncertainty remains. Which themes will become investors’ top Google searches in 2023?
Find out how New York Life Investments can help you make sense of market trends.

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