The price falls on the stock exchanges brought shifts in the ranking of the most valuable listed companies. Europe’s corporations are falling further and further behind.
New York/Frankfurt. The fall in prices on the stock markets since the beginning of the Ukraine war has thrown the ranking of the 100 most valuable listed companies upside down. Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco ousted Apple in second place in the first half of the year, according to a study by consulting firm EY. The turbulence hit technology groups hard, while energy companies experienced a renaissance.
With a market value of 2.3 trillion dollars (around 2.2 trillion euros) as of June 30, 2022, Saudi Aramco was the most expensive company in the world. Apple, still at the top of the top 100 at the end of 2021, came second with $2.2 trillion. For the first time since the EY survey began in 2006, German corporations are no longer in the top 100. The ATX companies in Austria are even further away from the global top 100.
Destroyed trillions of values
The price slide on the world stock exchanges destroyed trillions in the first half of 2022. The market capitalization alone – i.e. the value of the shares traded on the stock exchange – of the 100 most expensive companies fell by 17 percent or $6.1 trillion to around $29.8 trillion over the course of the first six months. The stock market value of the long-favored technology groups collapsed by 28 percent compared to the end of 2021 (reference date: December 31, 2021). Bucking the trend, the oil and gas companies among the top 100 increased their stock market value by 19 percent.
Recently, investors have been focusing more on profitability than growth, explained Henrik Ahlers, CEO of EY Germany. Money is no longer so loose, the demands on companies and financial indicators are increasing. US corporations dominate the ranking. The top ten includes Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, United Health, Johnson & Johnson, and Meta. The most valuable European company was the Swiss food company Nestlé in 20th place, and software provider SAP was the most expensive German company in 113th place.
Ahlers expects that the surge in digitization triggered by the corona pandemic will shape the stock exchanges in the years to come. Here Europe and Germany are weakly positioned. Of the 23 technology companies in the top 100 ranking, 17 are headquartered in North America, four in Asia and only two in Europe.
Digitization has shrunk Europe’s weight on world stock exchanges in recent years. At the end of 2007, 46 of the 100 most valuable companies around the world still came from Europe. (APA/DPA)
(“Die Presse”, print edition, July 4, 2022)
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