Bessembinder updated his long term stock market study to now cover a full 100 years, 1926 to 2025. He finds the degree to which wealth creation is concentrated in a few firms has increased sharply in recent years.
One Hundred Years in the U.S. Stock Markets
Hendrik Bessembinder
Research
25 Pages
Key Takeaways
Returns: The cross-stock mean buy-and-hold return is over 30,000%, the median is-6.9%.
Shareholder Wealth: Shareholders' wealth was enhanced by $91 trillion over the century, but long-term investors in nearly 60% of stocks incurred wealth reductions.
Power Laws: Over the 1926 to 2016 period studied in Bessembinder (2018), 89 firms accounted for half of the $43 trillion in net wealth creation. After including outcomes for the most recent nine years, just 46 firms account for half of the $91 trillion in net wealth creation over the full century.
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