World's Largest Companies As Investing Roadmap?

Here is an interesting chart depicting the world's largest companies by market capitalization from the Economist.

According to the Economist, ``THE market capitalisation of PetroChina may have fallen by almost half in the past year, but it remains the world’s most valuable company. Chinese firms now occupy three of the top four slots. (The state’s large non-traded holdings are valued at market prices.) Seven of the 12 most valuable companies are either banks or oil producers. Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble have all climbed the table in the past year; their industries tend to weather recessions better than others. Market capitalisation does not necessarily tally with other measures of size. Microsoft is worth more than Royal Dutch Shell, which has nearly eight times the revenue of the software company and 10,000 more employees." (emphasis added)

Given the sustainability of the present trends where Asia outperforms, the rankings will likely be skewed towards the inclusion of more Chinese or Asian companies, especially if the prediction of Templeton's Mark Mobius, where China's market value might overtake the US, would be anywhere accurate.

While past performance may not be indicative of the future, the evolution of global corporatism has been striking. The underlying themes being that of China-Asia, oil, global banking and consumer products and retailing.

Could this serve as our roadmap for investing?