Exxon Mobil has replaced Wal-Mart as the top fortune company

The top spot is no longer Walmart (with total revenue of $351B and total net income of $11.3B). It’s Exxon Mobil with total revenue of $410.7B and total net income of $40.5B. At the beginning of this year 2007, we saw Walmart reclaim the top spot from Exxon Mobil but now they’ve lost it again. Look at the current revenue and net income differences of the two corporations. How has the oil giant climbed up so fast?

It’s an obvious fact if we notice that the gas price has almost doubled in the last 2 months. Now, it costs me $5 or even more just to go to school and back home. Isn’t it insane for a student?

It’s also not surprising that four (1,3,4,6) out of the top (in term of total revenue) six fortune companies are on oil industry (Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron). Talking about net incomes, those 4 oil companies are performing way better than Wal-Mart and also even better than the biggest banks such as Citygroup ($21.5B) or Bank of America ($21.1B).

This reminds me a story from my Physics Professor last year when I audited a course on Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics. He had gone for a conference and during a lunch, he noticed that all industrialists were talking/chatting about energy. They only discussed about the energy talks in the morning. He then went on commenting: “So, energy is gonna be the biggest issue in Physics in this century. If you want to be rich, invest in energy and of course take this course with enthusiasm.”

The status quo has convinced this non-physicist that he was damn right.

References: all numbers are sourced from wikipedia.