Saudi Aramco Topples Apple as the World’s Most Capitalised Firm

The world’s most valuable company, Apple loses its top position as number one in the wake of a broad sell-off in technology stocks.

Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer, Aramco unseated the tech company for the first time in two years. Apple dropped by over five percent in New York on Wednesday to end the trading day with a stock market valuation of $2.37tn (£1.94tn).

Also, Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies crashed overnight with Bitcoin plunging to $26,000 a coin for the first time in years.  Investors are selling all their holdings in risk assets to curtail the impact of the projected recession and global rout on their portfolios.

Aramco became the world’s most valuable company when Apple’s market value closed at $2.37 trillion on Wednesday, below Aramco’s $2.42 trillion market capitalisation.

The strong position of Saudi Aramco was due to the persistent increase in crude oil price, largely caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine and COVID-19 related cases in China. This is the first time Aramco will overtake Apple as the world’s most valuable company since 2020.

From the year to date, Apple stock has dropped 35.51 points, or 19.51% of its value to $146.50 a unit. Other market report showed that technology-heavy Nasdaq closed 3.2 per cent lower in New York on Wednesday after official data showed that US inflation remained near a more than 40-year high.

As a result of the covid-19 pandemic, rising prices have been the major and biggest threat to the recovery of the global economy.

“Central banks around the world have responded to the problem by raising interest rates, which has triggered a move out of riskier investments over concerns that the higher cost of borrowing will slow down economic growth,”

The move out of what are seen as risky assets also helped to push the price of Bitcoin below $29, 000,” BBC said.