Prosper Junior Bakiny, The Motley Fool
Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 11:05 AM 5 min read
In This Article:
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Microsoft is the second-largest company by market cap, behind Nvidia.
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The cloud computing leader is well positioned to be the next $4 trillion stock.
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Microsoft could continue to perform well long after it reaches $4 trillion.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been firing on all cylinders over the past two years, and the company just added one more accomplishment to its long list of medals: The chipmaker became the first stock to hit the $4 trillion mark. It now sits as the most valuable company in the world, but others are close behind.
Other corporations will eventually reach that valuation too, perhaps even sooner than many think. And the stock most likely to get to $4 trillion next is Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Read on to find out why.
Most of the members of the "Magnificent Seven" have market caps above $1 trillion, but some are much closer to the $4 trillion mark than others. The two largest companies behind Nvidia are Apple, valued at $3.16 trillion, and Microsoft, at $3.72 trillion. The others are much further behind.
And while there's the possibility that they will soar while these two drop, assuming they all perform relatively similarly in the next few months, Microsoft will get there first simply because it's the closest.
However, Microsoft has an excellent chance of performing better than, at the very least, its closest competitor, Apple. The iPhone maker has been hit hard this year due to the current U.S. administration's trade policies. The Trump administration aims to bring manufacturing back to the United States, which poses a challenge for Apple, as the company outsources most of its manufacturing to countries such as China, a favorite target of Trump's aggressive tariffs, and other Asian nations.
Trump recently doubled down on his threat of aggressive tariffs. Additionally, Apple has fallen behind Microsoft and its tech peers in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. While I think Apple could still perform well over the long run, the company's short-term prospects don't look attractive.
What about Microsoft? The tech leader delivered excellent results during its latest update, which covered the third quarter of its fiscal year 2025, ending on March 31. Microsoft's cloud computing and AI businesses are booming. It has been gaining ground on Amazon in the competitive cloud field.
Further, the company's latest update provided strong guidance, indicating a growing demand for its services, despite a somewhat shaky macroeconomic environment. The smart money is on Microsoft outperforming Apple in the next few months.
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