ERS’s Fiduciary Risk Rating™ on 9 Mega-Cap Stocks in 2024
7/5/2024 to 4/3/2025 Study
The market cap of 9 of the 10 largest companies in America on 7/5/2024 was $18.26 trillion.
The Fiduciary Risk Rating clearly indicated that most of these 9 companies were extremely risky.
| Company | Price 7/5/24 |
Market Cap 7/5/24 |
PRI™ 7/5/24 |
FRR™ 7/5/24 |
Price 4/3/25 |
Return to 4/3/25 |
| Alphabet | $190.60 | $2,349 | 86 | 61 | $150.71 | -20.9% |
| Amazon.com | $200.00 | $2,081 | 71 | 69 | $178.27 | -10.9% |
| Apple | $226.34 | $3,471 | 100 | 73 | $202.94 | -10.3% |
| Broadcom | $170.33 | $793 | 100 | 100 | $154.00 | -9.6% |
| Eli Lilly | $914.57 | $823 | 90 | 100 | $788.99 | -13.7% |
| Meta Platforms | $539.91 | $1,370 | 92 | 74 | $531.78 | -1.5% |
| Microsoft | $467.56 | $3,475 | 100 | 89 | $373.03 | -20.2% |
| NVIDIA | $125.83 | $3,095 | 98 | 94 | $101.75 | -19.1% |
| Tesla | $251.52 | $804 | 90 | 88 | $267.29 | +6.3% |
| Average: | 92 | 83 | -11.1% | |||
| S&P 500 | 5,567.19 | 5,400.43 | -3.0% | |||
| NASDAQ | 18,352.76 | 16,574.63 | -9.7% |
Market cap amounts in billions
ERS Ratings and Price Changes of the 9 Mega-Cap Stocks
With 46 Alternatives and 849 Other Alternatives
(Note the very significant ERS Ratings differences between the best 100 and the worst 100 companies)
From 7/5/24 to 12/2/24, the 10 largest companies rose an average of 5.6%.
The 9 companies with PRI™ ratings over 70 rose an average of 4.5%,
while the 1 company with a PRI™ rating under 35 gained 15.7%.
Comparison of Berkshire Hathaway’s Price Changes
with the 9 Other Mega-Cap Stocks
From 7/5/24 to 4/3/25, the 9 mega-caps with very-high-risk FRR™ ratings fell an average of -11.1%,
while Berkshire Hathaway, 1 mega-cap with a low-risk FRR™ rating, gained +29.2%.
Berkshire Hathaway – Low-Risk
| Company | Price 7/5/24 |
PRI™ 7/5/24 |
FRR™ 7/5/24 |
Price 4/3/25 |
Price Gain |
| Berkshire Hathaway | $618,545 | 33 | 17 | $744,944 | +29.2% |
90 of the 849 Alternative Companies
The 10 Largest From Each Sector, Except Basic Materials & Real Estate
| Total Market Cap |
Total Revenue |
Total Net Income |
||||||
| Communication Services |
AT&T Inc | Charter Comms | Comcast | Fox | Interpublic Group | $777 billion |
$564 billion |
$60 billion |
| Match Group | Omnicom Group | Sirius XM | T-Mobile US | Verizon | ||||
| Consumer Cyclical |
Airbnb | Booking Holdings | Home Depot | Lowe’s Companies | Marriott Int’l | $1,320 billion |
$478 billion |
$60 billion |
| McDonald’s | Nike | O’Reilly Auto | Starbucks | TJX Companies | ||||
| Consumer Defensive |
Altria Group | Coca-Cola | Constellation Brands | Keurig Dr Pepper | Kimberly-Clark | $1,424 billion |
$466 billion |
$66 billion |
| Mondelez Int’l | PepsiCo | Philip Morris Int’l | Procter & Gamble | Target | ||||
| Energy | Chevron | ConocoPhillips | Energy Transfer LP | Enterprise Products | EOG Resources | $1,351 billion |
$1,094 billion |
$103 billion |
| Exxon Mobil | Marathon Petroleum | Occidental Petro. | Phillips 66 | Schlumberger | ||||
| Financial Services |
American Express | Bank of America | Berkshire Hathaway | BlackRock | Citigroup | $2,845 billion |
$1,075 billion |
$215 billion |
| Goldman Sachs | JPMorgan | Morgan Stanley | Progressive | Wells Fargo | ||||
| Healthcare | Cencora | Centene | Cigna Group | CVS Health | Elevance Health | $959 billion |
$1,759 billion |
$72 billion |
| HCA Healthcare | Humana | IQVIA Holdings | Johnson & Johnson | McKesson | ||||
| Industrials | Caterpillar | CSX Corp | Deere & Co | FedEx | General Dynamics | $1,046 billion |
$506 billion |
$60 billion |
| Honeywell Int’l | Illinois Tool Works | Lockheed Martin | Union Pacific | UPS | ||||
| Technology | Applied Materials | Auto. Data Process. | Cisco Systems | Cognizant Tech. | Fiserv | $1,124 billion |
$304 billion |
$52 billion |
| HP Inc | IBM Corp | Microchip Tech. | Paychex | Qualcomm | ||||
| Utilities | American Electric | Constellation Energy | Dominion Energy | Duke Energy | Exelon | $630 billion |
$210 billion |
$31 billion |
| NextEra Energy | PG&E | Public Service Enter. | Sempra | Southern Co | ||||
| Total | $11.5 trillion | $6.5 trillion | $718 billion |
On July 5th, The 9 Mega-Caps Were Rated as “Extremely Risky”
As Of Market Close on 4/3/25, The 834 Stocks That ERS Rated as “Okay”
Performed Far Better Than Wall Street’s Favorites
ERS Ratings Performed as Expected.
| Group | Price Risk Indicator™ | Fiduciary Risk Rating™ | Price Change to 4/3/25 |
| 834 Companies with “Average” Ratings | Average: 47 | Average: 41 | +0.5% |
| 9 Mega-Caps with Very High-Risk Ratings | Average: 92 | Average: 84 | -11.1% |
| S&P 500 | -3.0% | ||
| NASDAQ | -9.7% |
On 7/5/24, 9 of the largest stocks had a combined market cap of $18.2 trillion.
ERS’s Fiduciary Risk Rating™ on these 9 stocks was 84, indicating an extremely high risk of loss.
ERS designed a study to test the hypothesis that a proprietary selection of “okay” companies would lose less and produce significantly higher long-term profits than investing in nine companies that ERS’s FRR identified as extremely high-risk.
ERS’s data analytics show the vast majority of Wall Street analysts were making catastrophically bad investment analyses.