Higher leverage can increase HCA’s risk profile and limit its financial flexibility. Elevance provides medical, dental, pharmaceutical and disability plans through affiliated health insurance companies like Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Berkshire Hathaway never split its Class A shares because it wanted to keep value without increasing volatility, resulting in a share price that is well over $400,000. You can calculate a company’s stock price by dividing its market cap by the total number of outstanding shares. The company also has a large investment portfolio with stocks in major companies such as Apple (AAPL), Bank of America (BAC), and United Parcel Service (UPS). The Omaha, Nebraska-based company is the most expensive stock by share price, with Class A shares of the company selling at nearly half a million dollars per share. Berkshire Hathaway has been led by chair and CEO Buffet since the 1960s.
- When compared to a company’s industry peers, these metrics can help you gauge whether a stock is overvalued or undervalued.
- KLA provides equipment and services to semiconductor manufacturing, and its products are integral to the process.
- Large-cap stocks like these are an important part of every investor’s portfolio.
- However, Buffett wrote in a February 2023 letter to shareholders that the company “will always hold a boatload of cash and U.S.
Generally, health care stocks like HCA are considered defensive investments—meaning they’re a conservative choice with minimal risk of losing money. Revenues clocked in at $19.2 billion, up 9.6% year over year and diluted EPS increased by 42.6%. HCA does manage to keep a clean financial sheet and positive free cash flow.
Alphabet Inc (GOOGL)
That’s just one of Alphabet’s many widely used products, which also includes the email service ‘Gmail’, and the video site ‘YouTube’. The California-headquartered tech giant manufactures and markets the renowned iPhone, iPad and Macintosh computers, among other paragon consumer electronics products. It is the first and a longer-lasting company to have hit the $1 trillion market cap mark, and subsequently the $2 trillion and $3 trillion marks. Market capitalization doesn’t always tell investors the whole story, so here’s some additional information about the world’s biggest companies, as of October 2025. It must be noted that the world’s 10 most valued companies have market capitalizations of over $1 trillion each.
Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG)
- Meta makes the vast majority of its money from advertising, which accounts for about 98% of its revenue.
- Google has been referred to as the ‘most powerful company in the world’, thanks to its dominant position in the market data collection, and technological advantages in AI.
- While tech companies dominate the top of the stock market, there are other sectors represented, including oil, insurance, medical companies, and financial services.
- With nearly $700 billion in annual revenue, it earns more than most of the other companies on this list by a wide margin.
- Much of the company’s thriving success and revenue is built upon the success of this top-selling electronic.
They can be highly profitable as well; 15 of the stocks on this list outperformed the S&P 500 over the past five years. Tech companies, in particular, can often be profitable investments. They make up the top five — and eight of the top largest companies by market cap.
Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL)
For this article, GOBankingRates defined “expensive” by the quoted stock price. Many investors measure a share’s cost by the stock’s price relative to its earnings or sales. GOBankingRates works with many financial advertisers to showcase their products and services to our audiences. These brands compensate us to advertise their products in ads across our site.
It’s known for its communication services, including the WeChat app, as well as for publishing video games and other digital content. In March 2025, Tencent acquired a 25% stake in Vantage Studios, a new subsidiary of gaming company Ubisoft Entertainment. Oracle is an information technology company founded by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates.
JPMorgan has launched multiple ventures Day trading signals in the growing cryptocurrency market. It partnered with Coinbase, one of the leading crypto exchanges, in July. The partnership makes it easier for the bank’s customers to invest in cryptocurrency. The bank is also incorporating AI technology into its operations.
It launched its first Meta AI app, an AI assistant, in April 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also went on a hiring spree for top talent and announced Meta Superintelligence Labs in June. The organization aims to develop AI superintelligence, a theoretical stage of AI that would surpass humans in practically every area. To diversify its portfolio, Saudi Aramco invested $500 million in a liquified natural gas (LNG) company, MidOcean Energy, in September 2023. It also signed a joint development agreement with China’s BYD Company, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, in April 2025. HCA Healthcare is one of the largest U.S. health care providers, with its vast array of hospitals, telehealth care, emergency rooms and outpatient centers.
Saudi Arabian Oil Company (
It alleges that Apple illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones through contractual restrictions on developers. The Trump administration’s import tariffs have also added to Apple’s costs, although it has managed to reduce this burden through a U.S. investment of $100 billion. The main weakness is that this giant health firm carries around a high amount of debt.
Best for portfolio diversification
It alleges that Visa operates an illegal monopoly over the debit card payments market. While there are several big banks in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase is the biggest. It managed $4.00 trillion in assets at the end of 2024, more than any other U.S. bank and the fifth-highest in the world.
Top 5 Highest Priced Stocks in America
Read on to see the 20 most valuable companies and where they stand as of November 2025. How long you should hold stocks depends on your objectives and what the market is doing. In general, most investors build wealth by holding stocks long-term. Our picks for the best stocks to buy now include a lot of technology and semiconductor stocks. These industries have done extremely well over the past several years and are likely to do so for the next few years at least.
A company’s stock price simply represents the current price at which a buyer and seller are willing to trade its stock. Therefore, the stock price alone doesn’t paint an accurate picture of its overall value. The stock price is a proportional value of a company’s value as it signifies a percentage change in its market cap. Buffett famously resisted splitting Berkshire’s shares, something companies normally do to make it easier to trade their stock.
This has no real effect on the company’s market cap, but results in lower share prices. But remember, a high stock price in and of itself does not equal a company’s total market value. This is determined by market capitalization, which is the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the share price. A company’s stock price by itself, without knowing how many shares there are, is not useful. For instance, a company with ten shares at $1 million each would certainly have a high share price, giving a total value of $10 million. Another company may have ten million shares at just $200 a piece, but it would be worth $2 billion.
However, the company has a variety of healthcare businesses to help insulate it from market and membership shifts. In the world of digital creation, ADBE is facing competition from cheaper alternatives and open-source tools. The stock is also exposed to economic sensitivity, as its customers, many of which are small businesses and freelancers, are vulnerable to economic downturns. Much of the company’s thriving success and revenue is built upon the success of this top-selling electronic. The company has six different brands under its umbrella, including Booking.com, Priceline, and KAYAK.
The company was founded in 1871, and is one of the largest landowners in Texas. Run by billionaire and legendary investor Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway is a holding conglomerate for multiple businesses including GEICO and Fruit of the Loom. At first glance, investing in some of the most expensive stock might seem out of reach to the average and beginner investors. Berkshire Hathaway is far from the only stock that has risen to a high share price.