Facebook, Amazon join $300-bn Market Cap Club

The significant jump in shares of Facebook and Amazon took them into $300-billion club on 4 October. The market capitalization of Facebook soared to $303.6 billion surpassing General Electric's (GE) $299.1 billion.

The encouraging quarterly results brought cheers to investors pushing the share price upwards and adding over $1 billion to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's net worth.  

With the latest addition of two companies, the total number of US companies that made it to the $300 billion market capitalization rose to eight.

Six of the eight are from the technology sector and Apple leads the pack.

Facebook shares were up 1.38 percent or $1.44 to $104 while Amazon's stock rose 2.47 percent or $15.80 to $640.96 on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg's mobile advertising has proved to be successful in getting anticipated revenues and this infused fresh buying interest into the market. 

Amazon made it to $300-billion club in early session as the share price touched $645.93 pushing net worth of Jeff Bezos up $1.3 billion as the total market capitalization is hovering at $300.54 billion.

The shares of Facebook and Amazon rose 36 percent and 106 percent, respectively. 

The latest surge in Amazon and Facebook indicates the undercurrent potential in technology stocks in the markets at a time when much debate is going on about the valuations of unicorn startups such as Airbnb, Uber, etc. 

Only eight US companies are above $300-billion market capitalization. Six of the eight are from the technology sector only. Apple leads the pack with $683 billion followed by Google with $515 billion, Microsoft with $433 billion, Exxon Mobil with $362 billion and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway with $340 billion. 

Facebook Inc's stock price surpassed $100 per share in October for the first time in three years. This took the market capitalization of Facebook nearer to $100-billion mark. Amazon's journey to $300-billion club was also very fast as third quarter results buoyed the market sentiment. The fast-growing cloud computing division is adding to Amazon's profits.  

Facebook's strong presence in mobile devices added the most to its profits for the third quarter. Facebook posted 72 percent year-on-year growth in advertising revenues to $3.3 billion generated on smartphone and tablets while the total revenues grew 41 percent to $4.5 billion. 

Facebook is also counting on video content as a major growth segment. It's estimated that 500 million users are watching 8 billion videos on Facebook every day.

The number of users watching videos on Facebook doubled in April. Facebook's costs are also increasing. The total costs were up 68 percent to $3 billion. Facebook hired 1,000 this year taking the total headcount to 12,000. Comparatively, Amazon and Facebook made it quicker to reach $300-billion mark more particularly the pace of share price rise is so fast in 2015 year.