"Exxon Mobil Back at No. 1 in Market Value, Even as It Shrinks Shares"
by Floyd Norris

Source:  The New York Times, September 24, 2005.
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30A17FD3F540C778EDDA00894DD404482

             Who's the biggest?  This article ranks U.S. corporations according to their market value.  Market value refers to the trading price of stock in the company multiplied by the total number of stock shares.  By this measure, Exxon Mobil, the petroleum company, tops the list.  The article notes that this is surprising because the number of shares in the company has been shrinking as the company has decided to buy them back.  But the price of the shares increased, driving up the overall market value.

             In Chapter 6, your text ranks the top ten companies in terms of U.S. and world sales respectively (see Table 1 on page 123 and Table 2 on page 124).  This measure relies on the annual income of the company.  Of course, many of the same companies show up on all three lists.  The companies doing the most business largest sales) are, not surprisingly, among the most valuable.

• How big is $400 billion?  Try to find creative ways to describe this amount of money.  For example, how long would it take you to spend $400 billion if you spent $100,000 per year?  How far would 400 billion dollar bills stretch?
• Based on what you know about supply and demand, does it surprise you that the stock price rose when the supply decreased (due to the repurchase program)?