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.
By Dan Moskowitz | May 4, 2015 â 10:21 AM EDT. As of the end of April 2015, Apple Inc. (AAPL) sported a market cap of $772.65 billion. The second most valuable company in the world is no longer Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) or Google Inc. (GOOGL), which have market caps of $364.53 billion and $383.15 billion, respectively. The second most valuable company is now Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), with a market cap of $394.03 billion.