American Express is a payments company. Co. is engaged in providing credit and charge cards to consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies and corporations. Co.'s reportable operating segments are: Global Consumer Services Group, which provides services to consumers, including travel and lifestyle services; Global Commercial Services, which provides payment and expense management services, as weel as commercial financing products; and Global Merchant and Network Services, which operates a global payments network that processes and settles card transactions, acquires merchants and provides multi-channel marketing programs and capabilities, and services and data analytics. We show 43 historical shares outstanding datapoints in our AXP shares outstanding history coverage, used to compute AXP market cap on those dates.
Understanding the changing numbers of shares outstanding, the changing
share price, and the resulting changing AXP market cap history over the course of time is important for investors
interested in comparing AXP's market cap history versus its peers.
Many "beginner" or "novice" investors will look at one stock trading at a price of $10 per share and another trading at
a price of $20 per share and think the latter company is worth twice as much. Of course, that is a completely meaningless comparison without also knowing how many shares outstanding there are for each of the two companies,
and then calculating their respective market caps. Comparing the share price of AXP versus a peer is one thing; comparing
AXP market cap versus a peer is a completely different story.
Furthermore, via fluctuation both in per-share price and in the number of shares outstanding (via issuance of new shares over time, the repurchase of existing shares),
the market cap for a company like AXP can fluctuate over the course of history.
With this page we aim to empower investors researching AXP by allowing them to research the AXP market cap history. |
Video: The Importance of Market Cap
