History's biggest companies vs. Mag 7

Five charts to start your day

Good morning – here are your five chart for the day.

CHART 1 • History's biggest companies vs. Mag 7

Today's tech titans may seem unstoppable, but history suggests otherwise. When you adjust for inflation, the Mississippi Company of 1720 reached $8.4 trillion – dwarfing Apple's current $3.2 trillion valuation. This French trading venture, engineered by Scottish gambler John Law, promised untold riches from Louisiana's gold and silver. Instead, it created history's first stock market bubble, with shares rocketing from 500 to 10,000 livres in just one year before spectacularly collapsing.

Law had convinced France to swap its entire national debt for company shares, essentially making the firm too big to fail – until it did. The Dutch East India Company hit $10.2 trillion in 1637, while Britain's South Sea Company reached $5.5 trillion before its infamous crash. All three companies enjoyed government-backed monopolies and promised endless growth from colonial ventures.

Sound familiar? Today's Magnificent Seven control 30% of the S&P 500's value, echoing these historical extremes. The lesson? When companies become proxies for national economic policy and their valuations detach from reality, the reckoning can reshape entire civilisations.

Source: Visual Capitalist

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