fortune

Yes, I have. Fortune goes to great lengths to quality check company financial statements and vets their figures. If we do not feel the figures hold up to our standard, we will exclude them from the list. - Scott

The Fortune 500 rank is based on revenue. We also rank the universe by profits, assets, market value, and employees. When you sort by each metric, you can see different trends.

Revenue figures are most stable from year to year and it measures how much the company is generating that feeds into the economy.

There are wild fluctuations in profits and market value from year to year based on the business environment and climate. For example, companies always generate revenue but are not always profitable.

- Scott

Please don't say this to my boss or they may reduce my compensation. There is a lot of analysis that goes into building and maintaining databases, prospecting companies, estimating revenue thresholds, understanding/analyzing financials statements, and then composing the main lists and sub-lists. Maybe I need a raise. - Scott

This list gives you an insight into the American economy since it includes the biggest U.S. companies by revenue. For example, a few years ago we saw a big dip in figures due to the pandemic and the next year we saw a tremendous rebound by companies.

Also, we are able to see trends in industries. For example, Health Care companies accounted for 8 of the top 25 this year. In 1995, there were no Health Care companies in the top 25.

- Scott

We pull and check our data with company filings. It is always best to go to the source. We have a subscription to a Bloomberg terminal and I use it everyday.

I am not a big Yahoo Finance user since we have access to Bloomberg and also have access to the S&P Global Market Intelligence platform. The platforms play an integral role in the production of the list, but you always need to vet with company filings.

- Scott