Facebook passes Amazon in market cap and now sits on the brink of an exclusive club

• Facebook shares closed at a record high Friday even as the broader market for tech stocks slipped.
• Company's valuation briefly touches $500 billion and ends Friday at $499.8 billion.
• Combined with Amazon's post-earnings stock drop, Facebook is now the fourth-most valuable U.S. technology firm.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

sit on the brink of entering a very exclusive club.

The company's stock on Friday nudged up 1 percent, even as the broader market for tech stocks slipped, to set a new closing high of $172.45.

The shares rose for a second straight day after the company reported second-quarter sales, profit and user growth .

The stock move up pushed Facebook's valuation to $499.8 billion, or almost half-a-trillion dollars, after briefly touching that lofty level in intraday trading both Thursday and Friday. (According to Yahoo Finance.)

Combined with the drop in Amazon shares, the trading action left Facebook as the fourth-most valuable technology firm at week's end.

If Facebook rises to another high next week to close at or above a $500 billion valuation, it will join Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft as the only U.S. tech stocks to be so valued.

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