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.
Apple has joined the top 10 of the Fortune 500 list of the worldâs biggest companies for the first time. The Californian tech giant â one of the world's most valuable companies, with a cash pile of around $215bn (Â£163bn) â has joined the exclusive list despite reporting a fall in iPhone sales in the last year.