PetroChina’s 2007 stock-market debut was briefly valued above $1 trillion.
PetroChina shares surged on their first day of trading in Shanghai in November 2007, briefly giving the company a market capitalization above $1 trillion. The price later fell sharply, so the valuation was not sustained at that level.
The episode is an important reminder that an intraday market value can differ dramatically from a company’s longer-term valuation. Extraordinary first-day demand, limited tradable supply, and speculative trading can produce unusually high prices.
PetroChina is the listed oil and gas arm of China National Petroleum Corporation, one of China’s major state-owned energy groups. Its 2007 debut occurred long before Apple’s 2018 milestone, although Apple’s valuation was generally cited as the first sustained trillion-dollar market-cap achievement by a public company.