"Investors have witnessed a Twilight of the Gods' moment", says John Authers in the Financial Times. Since the inception of the S&P 500 index in the 1950s, IBM has spent the most time as the index's largest firm by market capitalisation. Its stint at the top included the entire 1980s, and in 1985 it comprised 6.3% of the index, a bigger share than Apple has ever achieved. Now, however, online TV streaming and content giant Netflix has caught up with it. And as if to underline this "dramatic shift" in the balance of power in the tech sector, Netflix has also caught up with Disney, "a company that is very much in the same line of business these days".
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