Editing Forbes 500

{{short description|Annual list of large companies}}
{{italic title|string=Forbes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
The '''''Forbes'' 500''' was an annual listing of the top 500 [[United States|American]] companies produced by ''[[Forbes]]'' magazine.<ref>{{cite web | title=Forbes 500 | website=Investopedia | url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/forbes500.asp | language= | access-date=August 25, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Forbes 500 | website=TheFreeDictionary.com | url=https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Forbes+500 | access-date=August 25, 2018}}</ref> The list was calculated by combining five factors: [[sales]], [[Profit (accounting)|profits]], [[assets]], [[market value]], and [[employees]].<ref>{{cite web | title=The Forbes 500s | website=Forbes | date=March 28, 2003 | url=https://www.forbes.com/2003/03/26/500sland.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618093705/http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/26/500sland.html | archive-date=June 18, 2013 | url-status=live | access-date=August 26, 2018}}</ref> The list was last issued in March 2003 (based on 2002 data for the companies); it is no longer calculated each year and has been replaced by the [[Forbes Global 2000]], which includes non-U.S. companies but is calculated on a similar basis as the old Forbes 500 (although it does not include employees).

==Quantifying the largest companies==
{{more citations needed section|date=August 2018}}
Various methods exist in determining the largest corporations.  Forbes Magazine, for example, takes into consideration profit, revenue, market capitalization, and value of assets when ranking companies by size; the magnitude of any one of these factors alone may not necessarily be indicative of a firm's overall ranking.

The value of a firm's [[assets]] is typically derived from a company's ability to generate cash via its ownership and control of inputs and/or distribution of the final product. Banks and financial institutions, for example, tend to have a large number of assets due to loans and investments, however, a large portion of these do not actually belong to the firm since these assets are customers' deposits.

[[Fortune 500]] ranks companies by revenue. This method is heavily biased towards distributors such as [[Walmart]], which may have a high volume of sales but may be operating on very thin [[profit margin]]s.

Another method might be to look at the [[market capitalization]] of the company. However, this price is dictated by the perceived value of the company and its prospects. At one point in the late nineties, [[Cisco Systems]] would have been the biggest company by this measure, however the [[dot-com bubble]] crash reduced its perceived value dramatically. Another example would be [[Amazon.com]], which despite being barely profitable, has a very large market cap rivaling or exceeded established American companies due to the general market sentiment about its innovations.

==See also==
*[[Forbes Global 2000]]
*[[Fortune 500]]
*[[List of largest employers]]
*[[List of largest companies by revenue]]
*[[List of corporations by market capitalization]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Forbes Magazine Lists}}

[[Category:Forbes lists]]
[[Category:Lists of companies by revenue]]
[[Category:Annual magazine issues]]
[[Category:Lists of companies of the United States]]