A clearing house is an intermediary between buyers and sellers of financial instruments. Further, it is an agency or separate corporation of a futures exchange responsible for settling trading accounts, clearing trades, collecting and maintaining margin monies, regulating delivery, and reporting trading data.
All the world's 10 most valuable companies, including Alphabet, Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT), are based in the U.S., according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ based on the S&P Global 1200 index. Alphabet's rise to No. 1 with a market value Tuesday of $554.8 billion is a historic moment.
Google passed Exxon Mobil on Friday to become the second largest company in the United States by market value. The search engine giant has a market capitalization of almost $395 billion, compared to a market value of about $392 billion for Exxon. Apple, worth about $465 billion, is the most valuable company in the U.S.