A Wal-Mart sign stands in front of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003. Heading the list of the Fortune 100 top companies is Wal Mart.

　　Wal-Mart Stores Inc. retained the top spot in Fortune magazine’s 2005 ranking of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies, but soaring commodity prices led to big gains in revenues and profits for oil and metal producers.

　　Wal-Mart was No. 1 on the Fortune 500 for the fourth straight year, with 2004 sales of more than $288.189 billion, up about 11 percent from 2003.

　　Exxon Mobil Corp. ranked second once again with $270.772 billion in sales, up a stunning 27 percent from the year before as the price of oil rose above $50 a barrel and gasoline sold for more than $2 a gallon. The company also topped Fortune’s profits charts for the second year in a row with $25.3 billion in earnings, breaking Ford Motor Co.’s record from 1998.

Learn more from this article