Amazon becomes S&P 500's 7th biggest

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon jumped into place as the S&P 500's seventh-largest company, leapfrogging GE and Johnson & Johnson, as its stock surged on better-than-forecast earnings.

Amazon shares (AMZN) rallied 10% Friday, closing at $659.59 and lifting its market cap to around $311 billion.

With that jump, five of the top seven largest U.S. public companies are now tech stocks. The shift underlines how technology, long a driver of the bull market, is still powering the levers even as the biggest force — Apple — loses momentum.

Amazon puts Microsoft away in the Battle of Seattle

In addition, the nation's business engine is now concentrated in the West coast, with three of the top companies here and two in the Seattle area.

Amazon said late Thursday its earnings per diluted share were $1.07, far exceeding the 59 cents per share forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Sales for the Seattle-based company were $29.1 billion, up 28% and also topping analysts' forecasts of $28 billion.

Even parts of Amazon line up well with other tech titans. Strong double-digit growth came from its cloud services unit, Amazon Web Services. AWS earned $604 million in profit on $2.57 billion in sales, a 64% year-over-year growth.

If it continues to post that level of sales every quarter, the AWS unit is as big as some stand-alone companies —  for instance China search operator Baidu or PayPal — and double Yahoo's annual revenue.

Company       Market value (as of Friday afternoon)

1. Apple                          $518 billion

2. Alphabet                     $486 billion

3. Microsoft                     $392 billion

4. Exxon Mobil                $367 billion

5. Berkshire Hathaway-A $360 billion

6. Facebook                    $345 billion

7. Amazon                      $311 billion  

8. Johnson & Johnson    $309 billion

9. General Electric          $285 billion

10. Wells Fargo               $253 billion

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence