Winter 2024 Snapshot of the S&P 500's Market Cap

The market capitalization of the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) increased by a little over 2.5% during the fourth quarter of 2024. According to Standard and Poor, the index ended 2024-Q4 with a market cap of $51.86 trillion.

Since the end of the third quarter of 2024, the value of the Top 10 stocks within the market cap-weighted index rose from representing 34.6% of the index’ total value to 37.3%, which means these ten stocks account for $3 out of every $8 of the index’ total value.

The combined market capitalization of the Top 10 firms of the S&P 500 increased from $17.51 trillion to $19.35 trillion.

Meanwhile, the other 493 firms that make up the index collectively fell by $525 billion. The market cap of all these other firms rounded up to a total of $32.51 trillion.

The following chart shows the relative shares of the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 at the end of the 2024-Q4.

Here are the approximate market capitalizations of each of the S&P 500′s top ten component firms at the end of 2025′s first day of trading on Thursday, 2 January 2025:

• Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) $3,848,019,662,634 (7.42%)
• Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) $3,542,045,053,341 (6.83%)
• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) $3,246,442,464,702 (6.26%)
• Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) $2,152,194,285,705 (4.15%)
• Meta Platforms (A) (NASDAQ: META) $1,363,920,716,001 (2.63%)
• Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) $1,156,480,302,921 (2.23%)
• Alphabet (A) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) $1,130,550,251,286 (2.18%)
• Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) $1,104,620,199,651 (2.13%)
• Alphabet (C) (NASDAQ: GOOG) $949,039,889,841 (1.83%)
• Berkshire Hathaway (B) (NYSE: BRK.B) $860,877,714,282 (1.66%)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) retained its position as the most valuable company in the world as measured by its market cap.

However, since the end of September 2024, Nvidia has surpassed Microsoft to become the second largest firm of the index, while Microsoft now ranks third-largest. Notably, each of the Top 3 companies of the S&P 500 has a market cap in excess of $3 trillion.

There was no change in the rankings for the next two slots. Amazon held onto fourth place and Meta clung to fifth place. Perhaps the biggest change was Tesla, which boomed upward to become the sixth largest company within the S&P 500 with a market cap exceeding $1 trillion.

While the remaining firms saw their market caps rise, their relative position within the index dropped. Class A shares of Alphabet (formerly known as Google) came in seventh. Broadcom jumped into eighth place, Class C shares of Alphabet kept the ninth slot, while Berkshire Hathaway’s position went from being the seventh largest firm of the S&P 500 to become the tenth largest.

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 31 December 2024. Accessed 2 January 2025.