Among all the hoopla last week was that the market capital value of Google (who calls it Alphabet anyway?) grew beyond Apple’s to become the largest publically traded company in the universe. Friday saw that reversed following a pull back in Google stock and an increase for Apple.

So although Google may have exceeded Apple’s market capital that was clearly, in part, due to the falling value of Apple rather than exceptional growth at Google. Naturally this is not all there is to being the biggest company.

Using our powerful screener we took just a few examples of the “biggest” balance sheet and income indicators for companies and have listed the top three companies for each:

A few tips on how to use the screener:

- Using the boxes or the handles in the screener you can narrow your choice of companies. In this case you can find each of the below listed companies by adjusting (either dragging the handle or typing in the number) amounts for each category.

- By clicking on the column name, for example Market Cap, you’ll be able to list companies in an ascending or descending order. List companies in alphabetical order by clicking on Company Name column.

- You may also add additional columns by clicking the PLUS sign, located at the top right of column names.

Stocks

In the past five days 322 stocks have reached their 52 week high.  Is it time to Sell, Hold or Buy? Use the screener to determine what you want to do, but you can further screen the stocks and look at them individually to see if they are what you want in your portfolio.

Mutual Funds

The Weiss Ratings recent analysis of ProFunds UltraShort Latin America Fund Service Class (UFPSX) and ProFunds UltraShort Latin America Fund Investor Class (UFPIX) , along with thousands of other mutual funds, revealed that these two funds are amongst the industry’s top total return performers in the BUY category. But, with their aggressive growth objective, which may involve additional risk, and a $15,000 minimum initial investment, theses funds may not appeal to all investors. To explore all Weiss Investment Ratings’ tools and reports, visit www.weissratings.com.

ETFs

Vanguard 500 Index Fund ETF Class (VOO) and SPDR® S&P 500 ETF (SPY) are some of the largest ETFs based on their assets in the Weiss BUY universe.

From over 1,600 Weiss Rated ETFs, 115 fall under the BUY recommendation, more than 600 are HOLD, and over 800 are SELL.

All investments receiving the Weiss Investment Rating of A or B are a BUY, C rating receives HOLD status and D or E are a SELL.

Banks

Despite what you may hear in the media the number of financial institutions on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) “Problem List” declined to 203 in Q3, 2015 from 228 in Q2, 2015, and total problem bank assets fell to $51.1 billion from $57 billion. Combined with the declining number of institutions overall, the percentage of total institutions identified as problematic is at 3.2%, that’s down from 3.6% in the previous quarter and down from 11.5% five years ago.

According to the FDIC, mergers absorbed 72 institutions, one new charter was added, and one institution failed bringing the total number of failures to six as of Q3, 2015.

For banks with Weak Safety Ratings from Weiss (rated D+ or below), click here. To explore over 1,400 Weiss recommended U.S. banks (with a rating of B+ or better), click here.

Credit Unions

Weiss Ratings upgraded the safety ratings of 715 credit unions and downgraded 403 based on its latest analysis of over 6,100 credit unions.

Weiss Ratings recommends that consumers do business with institutions rated B+ or better. Currently, 777 credit unions, or 12.6 percent, are rated B+ or better, meriting inclusion on the Weiss Recommended List.

For recommended credit unions with assets of $1 billion or more, see Weiss Strongest Large Credit Unions list.

Visit the Weiss Ratings website to see the most recent safety rating changes and be sure to check out our Screener tool.

Insurance

Missed the Open Enrollment deadline to sign up for 2016 health insurance and now shopping for health coverage on your own? Got married or had a child and now want to ensure that if anything happens to you your family wouldn’t encounter a financial hardship? Or maybe you just bought a new home and looking for a reliable insurer to protect your property?

Weiss Ratings can help you find the safest insurers when it comes to all of the above mentioned situations. Simply visit our website and explore Recommended Insurers by State. Select the state that you live in and a type of insurance you’re looking for and we will do the rest.

To explore Weiss Safety Ratings and data analysis on all insurers visit our insurance page.

Recent Company Failures