Only 8 of top global 25 companies in 1999 are still in top 25 in 2009 | Hacker News Reader

Only 8 of top global 25 companies in 1999 are still in top 25 in 2009

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22 pointscwan6 comments

On the one hand, I like how companies like Apple, Google and Nestle have done well in the past decade (because I think these companies add significant value to the economy), I'm less enthusiastic about the other trend.

Microsoft got kicked off the #1 spot and Exxon Mobil has taken its place. New contenders in the top 25? Petroleo Brasileiro, PetroChina, Shell and Chevron. I see a pattern here.

And JP Morgan Chase, they made it into the top 25 with $25B of TARP money.

Not making any moral judgement here. It never struck home to me how the economy shifted in the past 10 years for the biggest companies, so I thought I'd comment.

You hit the nail on the head. This is really the effect of the massive credit bubble - natural resource companies and financials. Given the way things are going, we will likely see a lot more of this in the next decade.

I'm not sure how natural resources are a bubble. They might not compete in the same way companies which innovate on their products do, but they're certainly not under-valued. Financials, on the other hand, are a bubble in which major shareholders have complete control of the legislative process in the US. Consider the power of the federal government to bail out those "too big to fail", and that bubble seems pretty unlikely to pop.

> Consider the power of the federal government to bail out those "too big to fail", and that bubble seems pretty unlikely to pop.

Every bubble pops. Trying to keep a bubble from popping makes the eventual pop significantly worse.

Original article (PDF) http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/wsj_DecadeSector...

It also seems that the US's share of top companies is in decline with non-US countries' shares nearly doubling in that timeframe.

I find it interesting to note how petroleum and financial companies now seems to be increasingly dominant. You could almost get the impression that the US has outsourced absolutely everything except harvesting oil and shoveling money around.

Although I'm sure the picture is a little bit more nuanced than that (as you can see the same thing for other countries too) it does show an interesting trend and makes you wonder how this may turn out in the long run.

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