The 30 Largest Companies on the Stock Market

The stock market continues to prove itself as one of the best places for people to grow their wealth. With the markets up strongly this year, the total market capitalization -- that is, the total market value of companies' shares -- of the U.S. stock market is $27.5 trillion at recent prices. That's a tremendous amount of wealth, with a significant portion of it held in regular folks' retirement accounts. 

Surprisingly enough, a huge portion of that value is derived from a very small group of companies. Of the thousands of publicly traded companies operating today, the 30 largest ones are worth almost $10 trillion -- about one-third of the entire market's value.

Here is a closer look at each of the 30 biggest companies on the stock market. (Note: All market data as of Nov. 30, 2017.)