Saudi Aramco briefly hits $2 trillion valuation

The exchange board at the Stock Exchange Market

(Image credit: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

Saudi Aramco shares gained further on their second day of trading Thursday, briefly pushing Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company to an unprecedented $2 trillion valuation before the stock eased back slightly, CNBC reports. The shares jumped by 10 percent in their first day of trading. The $2 trillion milestone, nearly $1 trillion higher than the value of the world's next biggest companies Microsoft and Apple, was the target Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman initially sought in the initial public offering of Saudi Aramco stock in his push to diversify the oil-rich kingdom's economy, Reuters reports. The Saudi Aramco IPO was the biggest ever, raising $25.6 billion to beat the $25 billion raised by Chinese online retail giant Alibaba in 2014.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.