Wall Street's Big 7 Are Now Bigger Than China's Entire Economy

The combined market capitalization of America's seven largest corporations has now overtaken the entire economic output of China, the world's second-largest economy.

As of July 17, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) together reached a staggering $18.84 trillion in market value.

That figure now exceeds China's 2024 gross domestic product (GDP), which stood at 134.9 trillion yuan, or roughly $18.7 trillion when converted at current exchange rates.

Market Cap vs. GDP? Not The Same Thing

This valuation supremacy is fueled by a concentrated wave of investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence and future cash flow generation. Nvidia alone now holds over $4.2 trillion in market cap, riding a 2024 rally powered by GPU dominance in AI workloads.

Yet, while the headline comparison is striking, it's important to recognize that market capitalization and GDP measure entirely different things.

One is the total value of a company's stock at a moment in time. The other tracks an entire country's economic output over a year.

One is a stock, the other a flow—so the comparison, while headline-worthy, is not economically sound.

Still, the fact that just seven U.S. companies are now "worth" more than China's entire economy says a lot about how much confidence investors have in American tech.

Comparing Apples to Apples: U.S. vs. China's Top 7 Stocks

While comparing Wall Street's Big 7 to China's entire GDP generates headlines, a fairer—and more financially sound—comparison pits the largest U.S. companies against the largest Chinese companies by market cap. The result is still striking.

As of July 17, the combined market capitalization of China's seven biggest publicly traded firms stood at just $2.3 trillion, or 12% of the $18.84 trillion total commanded by the U.S. tech titans.

By comparison, Nvidia alone has a market cap of $4.2 trillion, nearly double the value of China's top seven combined.

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