Of the approximately 3,550 publicly traded companies on American exchanges, only a handful are based in Montana.

So who are they? Banks. Montana only has a couple of publicly traded companies that I could find. Here they are with their basic info:

  • Glacier Bancorp, Inc. (GBCI): Based in Kalispell, MT. Trades on the NASDAQ. First Security Bank of Missoula; Valley Bank of Helena; Western Security Bank, Billings; First Bank of Montana, Lewistown; and First Security Bank. According to CNBC, Glacier Bancorp, Inc. has a market cap of $5.426 billion dollars.
  • First Interstate BancSystem Inc. (FIBK): Based in Billings, MT. Trades on the NASDAQ. Approximately 120 banking offices, including online and mobile banking services, throughout Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming. According to CNBC, First Interstate BancSystem, Inc. has a market cap of $2.874 billion dollars.

According to MyAccountingCourse.com:

Publicly traded companies, or public companies, are corporations that have sold their shares on a public stock exchange through an initial public offering to the general public. This allows anyone to purchase or sell ownership shares of the company.

What Montana based business would you invest in if it were publicly traded? It's only a rule of thumb, not law, but companies should have $100 million in revenue to be a desirable investment. I'm not sure we have too many of those but it's super hard to determine WITHOUT a company already being public.

Sure, there are many companies that are publicly traded for years that still haven't turned a profit. But that's actually much different than revenue. Valuations are generally made upon future earnings...and you hear about companies giving their "earnings calls" every quarter.

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