Apple briefly passes Exxon as No. 1 market cap

When Apple has a mishap (e.g. "antennae gate") it really doesn't hurt anyone in the long run.

When Exxon has a mishap (e.g. the Valdez in 1989 and ensuing punitive damages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill), where in turn "J.P. Morgan created the first modern credit default swap in 1994, so that Morgan's would not have to hold as much money in reserve (8% of the loan under Basel I) against the risk of Exxon's default."

In a weird way, Exxon triggered the beginning of the madness.

That all being said, Lion's new "natural gestures" could come back to haunt us all in about 10 years.

EDIT: To be fair, Apple didn't have to do anything. Over the past 2 weeks, Exxon has lost around 17%. They've simply passed Apple on the way down.

While I wouldn't be surprised, it would be an interesting case-study of how a behemoth in a particular field failed to fully adapt to and leverage the web. On paper one would think that Walmart's supply chain, and massive physical footprint would give it an advantage in this transition period, but it seems that those same things may be preventing it from truly taking advantage of the opportunity.

I will be. Wal-Mart's revenues are $421 billion a year. Amazon.com is $34 billion. They also have fundamentally different core businesses: Amazon's core is easily delivered items which are often difficult to find in stores, Wal-Mart's core is easy-to-find items for which delivery service poses problems.

If Amazon gets bigger than Wal-Mart, it will be because the market in easy deliverables becomes very large but the capabilities of general search companies fail to keep pace. Otherwise, Amazon continues its conversion to a data center and payment processing company.