Shrinking giants

THE market capitalisation of PetroChina may have fallen by almost half in the past year, but it remains the world's most valuable publicly listed company. Chinese firms now occupy three of the top four slots. (The state's large non-traded holdings are valued at market prices.) Seven of the 12 most valuable companies are either banks or oil producers. Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble have all climbed the table in the past year; their industries tend to weather recessions better than others. Market capitalisation does not necessarily tally with other measures of size. Microsoft is worth more than Royal Dutch Shell, which has nearly eight times the revenue of the software company and 10,000 more employees.

AP