Microsoft Overcomes Amazon as Second-Largest Company

David Mastroianni, strategic account executive at Adviser Investments, has the market analysis for Friday, October 26. Major U.S. stockA financial instrument giving the holder a proportion of the ownership and earnings of a company. indexes fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and NASDAQ down 1.2%, 1.7% and 2.1%, respectively. The University of Michigan’s monthly consumer sentiment gauge for October came in 0.4% below expectations. These slightly weaker-than-anticipated results are likely attributable to stock market volatilityA measure of how large the changes in an asset’s price are. The more volatile an asset, the more likely that its price will experience sharp rises and steep drops over time. The more volatile an asset is, the riskier it is to invest in., rising interest rates and the midterm election; however, consumer confidence remains near an all-time high. Meanwhile, Amazon fell nearly 8%—its largest single day decline since 2014—and lost its ranking as the second-largest U.S. company to Microsoft’s $821 billion market capitalization.