The Top Stock Market Companies to Watch in 2025

By Matthew Frankel, CFP – Updated Aug 20, 2025 at 10:28 PM | Fact-checked by Frank Bass

Key Points

With a $4 trillion market cap, Nvidia leads as the largest Nasdaq company, pioneering GPUs.
Taiwan Semiconductor tops NYSE listings with a $1.19 trillion cap, benefiting from AI investments.
Cargill, a major private U.S. firm, diversifies products, from food to pharmaceuticals.

Among the three major U.S. stock exchanges -- the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and over-the-counter (OTC) markets -- there are more than 12,000 publicly traded stocks available for investors. However, many of these are rather tiny, up-and-coming businesses.

If you limit your search to companies with valuations of $250 million or more, the number comes to about 3,600 as of June 2025. And if we look at companies with market capitalizations (the value of all of a company's shares combined) of $1 billion or higher, there were about 2,500 to choose from.

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Publicly Traded Company

A company that issues shares that are publicly traded, meaning the shares are available for anyone to buy and sell on the stock market.

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The bottom line on the top stock market companies

There are thousands of companies listed on the U.S. stock market's various exchanges. As of August 2025, there were about 3,450 different stocks listed on the Nasdaq (including cases where the same company has more than one class of stock), about 2,200 on the NYSE, and almost 6,500 on the OTC markets. The companies mentioned here, although the largest, make up only a tiny fraction of all publicly traded companies.

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About the Author

Matt Frankel, CFP, is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst and personal finance expert covering financial stocks, REITs, SPACs, and personal finance. Prior to The Motley Fool, Matt taught high school and college mathematics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of South Carolina, a master’s degree in mathematics from Nova Southeastern University, and a graduate certificate in financial planning from Florida State University. He won a SABEW award for coverage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He is also regularly interviewed by Cheddar, The National Desk, and other TV networks and publications for his financial, stock market, and investing expertise.

TMFMattFrankel

@MattFrankelCFP

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The five largest Nasdaq companies

The Nasdaq Stock Exchange is a tech-heavy index and includes several of the world's largest companies. In fact, the five largest Nasdaq companies were the five largest companies that traded on U.S. stock exchanges as of July 2025, and by a wide margin.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA): Nvidia is the first $4 trillion market cap company. It literally invented the graphics processing unit (GPU), and it remains the dominant leader in the space. Its chips have use cases in the most compelling technology trends, such as data centers, autonomous vehicles, mobile gaming, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT): Microsoft has a $3.74 trillion market cap, is a designer and manufacturer of both hardware and software, and provides services to customers. It is the company behind the Windows operating system, the Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools, the Azure cloud infrastructure platform, and much more.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL): With a market cap of $3.12 trillion, Apple was the third-largest company in the stock market in mid-2025. This is a business that needs no introduction since Apple is the company behind some of the most popular consumer electronics products in the world, such as the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN): Amazon has a $2.39 trillion market cap, and while it is best known for its dominant e-commerce platform, it is also the clear leader in cloud services through its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform, which has a commanding market share lead over rivals from Microsoft and Alphabet.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL): Alphabet isn't a household name itself, but its main subsidiary, Google, certainly is. The company had a $2.22 trillion market cap with two main divisions, Google Services and Google Cloud. Google Services consists of the dominant internet search business, Gmail, Google Maps, Android, the Google Chrome browser, and much more. Google Cloud is one of the big three cloud services platforms, with Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure being the other two.

The five largest NYSE companies

The New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, lists thousands of companies as well. Here are the five largest as of July 2025.

Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM): Taiwan Semiconductor is a chipmaker that makes components for personal computers, mobile devices, servers, data centers, and more. It has a market cap of $1.19 trillion and is emerging as one of the biggest winners of the surge in AI investment.
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B): Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate with more than 60 subsidiary businesses, including GEICO, Duracell, Dairy Queen, Pilot Travel Centers, and dozens more. It also owns a massive portfolio of common stocks worth more than $290 billion and has a staggering $348 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet as of the first quarter of 2025. Berkshire was the first non-technology company in the U.S. stock market to reach a trillion-dollar market cap.
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM): JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States in terms of asset size, and it has a $802 billion market cap in mid-2025. It has $2.4 trillion in deposits and $1.3 trillion in loans, and it operates more than 4,000 banking branches under the Chase brand.
Walmart (NYSE:WMT): Walmart is the largest physical retailer in the United States, and it also has a substantial e-commerce operation. With a $763 billion market cap as of July 2025, Walmart has generated $685 billion in merchandise sales over the past 12 months.
Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY): With a $756 billion market cap, Eli Lilly is a pharmaceutical manufacturer with a long list of products to treat a variety of conditions. Applications of the company's major drugs include treatments for diabetes, oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and more.

The five largest OTC companies

Many of the largest companies that trade on the over-the-counter (OTC) markets are foreign companies that are also listed on other major stock exchanges around the world. In fact, all of the top five are in this category as of August 2025.

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (OTC:LVMUY): LMVH is a massive conglomerate of luxury brands. In addition to those that make up the company's name, LMVH owns the brands Tiffany & Co., Christian Dior, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, TAG Heuer, and more.
Nestle SA (OTC:NSRGY): Nestle is best known for its chocolate brand, but it also owns a large portfolio of other food brands that are well-known in the U.S. and abroad, including Perrier, Gerber, Poland Spring, Deer Park, Nespresso, Hot Pockets, DiGiorno, Häagen-Dazs, Purina, and many others.
Roche Holding AG (OTC:RHHBY): Roche is a Swiss healthcare company that makes pharmaceuticals and medical diagnostics. It is the world's largest producer of cancer treatments and has a massive portfolio of pharmaceutical products.
Siemens AG (OTC:SIEGY): A German technology conglomerate, Siemens develops and manufactures automation solutions, infrastructure products, mobility products such as trains, healthcare solutions, and more.
Deutsche Telekom AG (OTC:DTEGY): Deutsche Telekom is a German telecommunications company and the largest telecom in Europe. For American investors, it is most significant as the former owner of T-Mobile, and it still owns a majority (50.2%) of the company.

The five largest private companies

Again, private companies are those whose shares don't trade on any public stock exchange. These companies may occasionally raise money from investors, but their shares are not liquid and may be available only to certain investors. As of August 2025, the five largest private companies in the United States by revenue were:

Cargill: A global company that produces food service products, nature-based pharmaceuticals, risk management solutions, nutritional supplements, and more.
Koch Industries: A conglomerate with many subsidiaries in various manufacturing, chemical, energy, minerals, and paper industries, among others.
State Farm: A massive insurance company that holds the No. 1 market share in auto insurance and is a major provider of other types.
Publix Super Markets: A large chain of supermarkets throughout the Southeastern U.S., with an especially large presence in Florida and Georgia and a total of almost 1,400 stores.
Mars: A food manufacturer best known for its candy products, including M&Ms, Skittles, Snickers, and more. It also owns several other popular food brands, such as Combos, and some of the most popular pet food brands, including Pedigree, Whiskas, and Nutro.

The Top Stock Market Companies to Watch in 2025