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Introduction
I’m certain some readers will find the headline of this article provocative, but as anyone knows who watches sports. You can’t be the world champion forever.
In the 1980’s the largest market cap company around was IBM (IBM), who at times had a market cap twice that of the follower, who throughout most of the decade was either AT&T (T) or Exxon (XOM). As we closed that decade, the top ten global market caps were dominated by Japanese companies, with NTT holding a market cap close to $150 billion (a telecom company). Only US companies amongst the top ten were Exxon and General Electric (GE).
The interest for Japanese equities succumbed in the early 1990s, when Exxon, Altria (MO), and Walmart (WMT) fought for the title as largest market cap company. General Electric kept the title throughout most of the decade until Microsoft (MSFT)…
