The combined value of the world’s three largest listed companies surpassed $10 trillion (£7.9 trillion) for the first time last night, boosted by another rise in the share price of computer chip designer Nvidia.
Nvidia this week overtook tech giant Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable company, having overtaken iPhone maker Apple earlier this month.
And yesterday shares hit a record high of more than $140 to give Nvidia a stock market value of $3.5 trillion.
Both Microsoft and Apple are worth about $3.3 trillion.
It means that if the trio of tech titans were an economy, they would be behind only the United States and China in size.
But it’s the notable rise of Nvidia – whose chips have fueled the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution – that has really caught investors’ attention.
In February, the company became the fastest company to go from $1 trillion to $2 trillion. Incredibly, it only took eight months.
Nvidia then went from $2 billion to $3 billion in just 30 business days starting April 24. This means that Nvidia has added $1 trillion in market value since May 20.
“In 23 business days, this is the fastest a company has added $1 trillion,” Deutsche Bank analysts said.
Nvidia is worth more than the value of the UK stock market and is almost as large as the annual output of the British economy.
“Exactly a decade ago, the entire listed British stock market was 400 times larger than Nvidia’s,” Deutsche analysts added. “In the last week, Nvidia surpassed it.”
Experts are divided on how far Nvidia can go.
“Stocks can’t keep going up in a straight line forever,” said Derren Nathan of investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.
Nvidia also faces growing competition from rival chipmakers, but counts the world’s next largest companies among its customers: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google-owner Alphabet.
But others point out that Nvidia has, in effect, cornered the market in both AI hardware and associated software, where sales growth will likely be the fastest over the next decade.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann believes Nvidia shares could hit $200 for that reason, putting it within striking distance of a $5 trillion price tag.
Investors don’t need to own Nvidia stock directly to benefit from the stock’s stratospheric rise. Tech funds or US stock market followers have also benefited, as Nvidia is on track to be the S&P 500’s best-performing stock for the second year in a row.
