MW Any of these 8 tech stocks could become a $5 trillion company before Nvidia does

By Mark Hulbert

Market leadership changes, and good companies aren't always good stocks

The largest-cap companies tend to underperform the market after climbing to the top of the market-cap rankings.

There's a good chance Nvidia won't become the U.S. stock market's first $5 trillion company.

Now that Nvidia (NVDA) has topped the $4 trillion market-cap threshold, some Wall Street analysts are on record that Nvidia's market value will reach $5 trillion by the end of 2026.

The reason I wouldn't bet on Nvidia is that the largest-cap companies tend to underperform the market after climbing to the top of the market-cap rankings. A gutsy contrarian bet therefore is that a company lower in those rankings will be the first whose market cap exceeds $5 trillion. I list eight contenders below.

To show that the largest-cap companies are poor bets, I constructed a hypothetical portfolio that each year invested in the stock of the largest-cap company as of the end of the previous year. From 1980 until earlier this week, this portfolio lagged the S&P 500 SPX by four percentage points annualized.

Though many investors are surprised by this result, they shouldn't be. It's the result of the creative destruction that is the essence of a capitalist economy. The companies leading the economy in one era inevitably are replaced by the next era's leaders. For example, IBM $(IBM)$, the largest U.S. company for much of the 1980s, was overtaken by General Electric $(GE)$ in the 1990s, which in turn was overtaken by Exxon Mobil (XOM) in the aughts. Beginning about 10 years ago, Apple $(AAPL)$ was at the top of the market-cap rankings, but has since stumbled.

Now it's Nvidia turn. But I doubt anyone five years ago would have bet that the company would attain this status. At that time its market cap was below $300 billion. Its stunning 76% five-year annualized rate propelled its market cap to $4 trillion.

As a thought experiment, I applied that same five-year growth rate to each of the technology companies currently in the S&P 500. On that assumption, there are eight besides Nvidia that could hit the $5 trillion threshold within the next five years.

They are listed below, in alphabetical order. It would be no more surprising for any of them to eclipse the $5 trillion threshold than it was for Nvidia to have performed as well as it has over the past five years.

-- Alphabet Inc. Class A GOOGL

-- Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN

-- Apple Inc. AAPL

-- Broadcom Inc. AVGO

-- Meta Platforms Inc. Class A META

-- Microsoft Corp. MSFT

-- Oracle Corp. ORCL

-- Palantir Technologies Inc. Class A PLTR

Many of you will object, arguing that Nvidia is different - the AI revolution is unique and will change everything. But in one form or another, we've heard this story before. The top of the internet bubble is an obvious example.

It's important to distinguish between a good company and a good stock. There's little doubt that Nvidia will continue to grow and be profitable. But that doesn't mean its stock will perform well, since to do that the company must grow even faster and become even more profitable than what investors already expect. And that's a tall order, since Nvidia investors already are expecting so much from the company in the coming years.

Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com

More: It's not an AI bubble - it's a longer-term bull market, says this Wall Street firm

Also read: 20 stocks of S&P 500 companies showing the fastest sales growth

-Mark Hulbert

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August 09, 2025 11:15 ET (15:15 GMT)

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