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What is Market Cap?

💡 Market Cap = Stock Price × Total Number of Shares. It tells you the total value of the entire company.

The simple formula

Market Cap = Price per Share × Total Shares

Example: $300/share × 15 billion shares = $4.5 trillion market cap

Why price alone doesn't matter

A common mistake: thinking a $500 stock is "more expensive" than a $50 stock. The price per share means nothing by itself — what matters is the TOTAL value (market cap).

Example: Stock A costs $500/share but has 1 million shares = $500M company. Stock B costs $50/share but has 1 billion shares = $50B company. Stock B is 100× bigger even though it costs less per share!

Size categories

Large Cap
$10B+
Apple, Google, Nike
Mid Cap
$2B - $10B
Smaller well-known companies
Small Cap
Under $2B
Startups, newer companies

Today's top 5 (live data)

1
NVIDIA CorporationNVDA
$5.04T
2
Alphabet Inc.GOOGL
$4.52T
3
Apple Inc.AAPL
$4.37T
4
Microsoft CorporationMSFT
$2.93T
5
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.SPCX
$2.64T

Key takeaway

Market cap is the real "size" of a company. Don't judge by stock price — judge by market cap. A $5 trillion company with a $200 stock is way bigger than a $5 billion company with a $2000 stock.