These Were the 5 Biggest Companies in 2010, and Here Are the 5 Biggest Companies Now

A lot can happen in 15 years. Kids grow up. Technologies are replaced. Jobs and addresses change. Even seemingly entrenched corporations are dethroned as market leaders.

And it's this last possibility that's of most interest to investors. It's happened so slowly that you may not remember it happening, but not all of today's titans were the dominant names of 2010. Some of the biggest outfits at that time have been displaced by companies better suited for the changes we've seen since then. And some of them haven't.

Then and now

The table below ranks the stock market's five biggest companies (as measured by market cap) as of the end of 2010.

Data source: Americanbusinesshistory.org

One name conspicuously missing from this list is General Electric. While it was the world's biggest company through the latter part of last century, by 2010 computer technologies and consumerism were better growth opportunities than industrial manufacturing...as Amazon (AMZN -0.23%) had already begun proving in earnest.

Image source: Getty Images.

And today's biggest companies? Given the aforementioned evolution of computer technology and the explosion of consumerism, no real surprises here (note that Amazon cracked into the top five in 2017, where it has remained ever since):

Data source: Finviz. 

Investors love to track company size

Investors get very excited when companies muscle to higher and higher market caps. But bigger isn't necessarily better. After all, the returns on your stocks are only relative to their own historical prices, and not market-cap-based.