The Fortune 500, which has become one of the most useless exercises in business journalism, has been released again. It covers company financials for the year 2008.
In this annual edition, Exxon Mobil (XOM) passed Wal-Mart (WMT) as the largest US company based on sales. Any investor could have made that calculation weeks ago when each company released its 2008 earnings.
According to Reuters, “Overall, earnings of the Fortune 500 fell 85 percent to $99 billion last year. That, the magazine said, was the biggest one-year drop since it began compiling its list 55 years ago.” Any institutional investor could have made the same calculation with historic data and a spread sheet.
The Fortune data is not only old, it is misleading. Market cap calculations are outdated long before the 500 issue comes out. The income data is based on GAAP, which in many cases give an inadequate look at how companies have done, especially if they have had important one-time financial events during the last year.
Fortune insists on printing the issue every year. It would be better off putting it online. At least it could be updated then and be relatively current instead of being a chronicle of ancient history.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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