Battle of the Big Dawgz: Who is the top top five?
Welcome to the Schmoozeletter Blog. Your source for weekly water cooler wisecracks from the world of finance. If you have an opinion different than mine or a topic you want to hear about, let me know!
This week, we’re talking about:
Battle of the Big Dawgz: Who is the top top five?
Topuria vs. Gaethje? Pssh.
Ali vs. Frazier? Yawn.
Mankind vs. The Undertaker? Snooze.
Hold on to your butts because we got a five-way battle for market supremacy featuring the five most valuable companies in the world:
Nvidia vs. Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft vs. SpaceX
This is…
Battle of the Big Dawgz: Who is the top top five?
Fighting out of the red corner…
Weighing in at a market cap over 5 trillion dollars and a CEO who looks like a middle schooler playing a biker in the springtime play…
THE CHIP KING…
Nvidia!!!!
Fighting out of the orange corner…
Weighing in at a market cap at 4.5 trillion dollars and a former motto, “Don’t be evil,” which they removed for some reason…
THE SEARCHER AND DESTROYER…
Google!!!!
Fighting out of the grey corner…
Weighing in at a market cap at 4.4 trillion dollars and a twenty-year history of selling the exact same phone…
THE MAC DADDY…
Apple!!!!
Fighting out of the green corner…
Weighing in at a market cap at 2.8 trillion dollars and a founder who totally had just zero idea whatsoever of what that bad guy Epstein was doing in the other room…
WOOOOOORD TO YOUR MOTHER…
Microsoft!!!!
Fighting out of the blue corner…
Weighing in at a market cap at 2.4 trillion dollars and a business model burning more cash than rocket fuel…
THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK…
SpaceX!!!!
Round 1: Revenue
Impressive revenue numbers from GOOG and MSFT. NVDA is slacking a bit but growing at a rapid rate, but the winner is AAPL.
SPCX is not even close.
Round 2: Free Cash Flow
GOOG and MSFT are investing heavily into AI so the numbers are down. NVDA is growing fast but not top dawg yet. The winner again is AAPL.
SPCX has negative FCF.
Round 3: Net Income
AAPL and MSFT with staggering net income numbers. NVDA is all about the rapid growth story and showing no signs of slowing down, but the most profitable company and the winner of this round is GOOG.
SPCX is losing money.
Round 4: Earnings Per Share
Big numbers from GOOG and AAPL. NVDA is on the climb, but on a per-share basis nobody is touching the winner of this round, MSFT.
SPCX is the one in blue that is below zero.
Round 5: Return on Invested Capital
Let’s take a gander at an efficiency metric here with ROIC. Almost everyone is over 20%, which is the sign of a great company, but NVDA takes the cake up at 75%.
SPCX is, eh… not efficient.
Round 6: Operating Margin
Let’s strip away the confusing hoo-ha and look strictly at the operations of these companies. GOOG and AAPL are impressively in the low 30%s. MSFT is even better up at 45%, but no one matches NVDA with an over 60% operating margin.
SPCX is… you guessed it… losing money on their operations.
Judge’s Scorecards:
Man, tough to pick a conclusive winner in the top five most valuable companies in the world this week… but there is one definite loser.
"In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” – Benjamin Graham
Fun Fact: Amazon retook SpaceX as the fifth biggest company in the world by the end of the week, but "who is the top top six" just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Final Thought
If you thought Donny’s hand-picked new Fed chair was going to come in and slash interest rates out of fear of a dreaded nickname like “Too-Late” Powell…
You would be wrong.
