From 1926 through 2025, just 27.6% of stocks beat the broader market. Nearly 60% actually destroyed shareholder wealth, and the median stock delivered a lifetime return of -6.9%. Yet despite those sobering odds, U.S. stocks collectively created roughly $91 trillion in wealth over the last century, with just 46 companies responsible for half of it.
Those are some of the headline findings from a new study by Hendrik Bessembinder of Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business, who examined the performance of nearly 30,000 U.S. stocks over the last century. The research paints a striking picture of how wealth is actually created in the stock market: while broad market indexes have generated exceptional long-term returns, the vast majority of individual stocks have failed to keep pace.
Bessembinder analyzed 29,754 publicly traded U.S. stocks between 1926 and 2025. Over that period, the overall stock market produced an annualized return of about 10.1%, turning every dollar invested into more than $15,000, according to the study, detailed in this white paper.
But those impressive aggregate returns mask an uncomfortable reality. The typical stock fared far worse. In fact, the median stock lost 6.9% over its lifetime, fewer than half of all stocks generated a positive lifetime return, only about 41% outperformed Treasury bills during the time they were publicly traded, and just 27.6% managed to outperform the market itself.
The reason is simple: stock market returns are incredibly uneven. While any stock can fall to zero, there is effectively no limit to how much a winner can rise. Over long periods, a tiny number of extraordinary companies generate gains so large that they more than offset the thousands of stocks that stagnate, disappoint, or disappear altogether. Those rare winners account for an outsized share of the market's overall success.
Perhaps the most surprising finding is that this concentration has become even more extreme. In Bessembinder's original research covering 1926 through 2016, 89 companies accounted for half of all shareholder wealth created by the U.S. stock market. After adding the last nine years of data, total wealth creation more than doubled to roughly $91 trillion, yet the number of companies responsible for half of it fell to just 46.
At the top of the list are many of today's biggest technology names. Apple ranks first, generating more than $5 trillion in shareholder wealth, followed by Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon. Collectively, those five companies account for more than one-fifth of all net wealth created by the U.S. stock market over the past century, while Apple and Nvidia alone make up more than one-tenth of the total.
The concentration becomes even more remarkable further down the data. Out of more than 29,000 companies included in the study, just 1,082, less than 4% of the total, were responsible for all of the market's net wealth creation. Meanwhile, nearly six out of every ten companies actually reduced shareholder wealth relative to simply investing in one month Treasury bills.
The study also pushes back against the idea that market legends are built on impossible annual returns. Many of history's greatest investments didn't earn 50% or 100% per year. Instead, they compounded at annual rates in the low to mid teens over extraordinarily long periods. The lesson is that consistent returns sustained over decades are often far more powerful than eye popping gains that prove impossible to maintain.
For investors, the findings reinforce one of the strongest arguments for diversification. While the stock market as a whole has created enormous wealth over the past century, identifying the relatively small group of companies that ultimately drive those returns has always been exceptionally difficult. Missing just a handful of those long-term winners can dramatically reduce investment results, which helps explain why broad index funds have consistently outperformed most active stock pickers over long horizons.
Bessembinder concludes that the tendency for a small number of companies to drive most of the market's returns is unlikely to disappear because it is a natural consequence of how returns compound over time. The bigger question, he suggests, is whether technologies like artificial intelligence will make wealth creation even more concentrated in a handful of dominant firms, or broaden the playing field enough to create the next generation of market leaders.
You can read the full white paper here.
Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:45Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times,
Artificial intelligence (AI) firms are absorbing office space in primary markets such as San Francisco and New York City at a record pace, and the sector’s voracious demand for office space to build out development teams and products has begun spilling into a select subset of submarkets as well.
National AI office demand was up 85 percent in the 12 months through May and spiked 179 percent in major AI hubs, a new AI report published on July 9 by AI-powered commercial real estate platform VTS states.
AI companies represented office demand of 16.8 million square feet across 17 markets during the period, VTS senior research manager Rene Moreira noted.
However, three metro areas represented nearly two-thirds of total office demand from AI companies, with San Francisco—the global epicenter for AI talent and development—accounting for 25 percent.
Office properties in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, California, and New York accounted for 63 percent of all current AI leasing, Moreira said.
“San Francisco alone sits at 5 million square feet, nearly a third of the national total,” he said.
Unprecedented office demand from AI companies in San Francisco is powering the city’s office market to a modest recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the second quarter of 2019, San Francisco’s office market hit a vacancy rate of 4.7 percent. Vacancy soared following work-from-home initiatives, however, reaching 30 percent in 2023 and topping out at 35.7 percent as recently as the second quarter of 2025, the City of San Francisco reported.
San Francisco’s office vacancy stood at 32.6 percent at the end of the first quarter of this year.
“San Francisco’s 81 active AI requirements average 62,000 square feet, 2.3 times the average tech requirement across all markets,” Moreira said.
The 45 active AI office lease searches in New York average 61,00 square feet each, while the 58 active searches in Silicon Valley average about 48,000 square feet, or 2.8 million square feet of office space.
Each submarket caters to different AI users, VTS noted. San Francisco is the headquarters of AI pioneers Anthropic (Claude) and OpenAI (ChatGPT), while Silicon Valley’s AI firms tend to be chip designers, hardware manufacturers, and infrastructure providers. New York’s AI companies are skewed toward enterprise-level AI firms, a nod to the city’s massive financial, legal, and media industries. AI firms in Washington, such as Anduril, Palantir, and Shield AI, serve the defense industry.
ExpansionAs the industry continues to grow, other markets are likely to become AI epicenters themselves, VTS said. Expansion will hit primary office markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas.
Seattle has already experienced a 390 percent year-over-year spike in growth from AI-related demand, the report said, signaling that outward expansion is already underway.
“Three pressures will push demand outward: AI engineering talent is scarce, San Francisco real estate is expensive, and 25 percent of active AI demand concentrated in a single submarket will produce the crowding that pushed prior cycles outward,” VTS said.
Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:25Apple shares fell 1% in premarket trading after KeyBanc Capital Markets downgraded the iPhone maker to "Underweight" from "Sector Weight" and set a 12-month price target of $250. This implies roughly a 21% decline from Monday's close, putting the stock in bear-market territory.
The downgrade by KeyBanc analysts Brandon Nispel and John Vinh is based on a widening disconnect between Apple's valuation and its underlying growth outlook. They cite soaring memory chip prices, which are pushing iPhone, Mac, and iPad prices higher. This increases the risk of demand destruction, slower unit sales, and a softer upgrade cycle.
At roughly 35 times forward earnings, Nispel warned that Apple's valuation leaves little room for a slowdown:
We downgrade AAPL to Underweight ($250PT; 19x '27 EV/EBITDA, 27.5x PE).
Our KFLD shows Indexed Spending -2% m/m, which is below the three-year avg of +9% m/m, another month of below-trend growth.
We think expectations NT are reasonable though we see: 1) slowing iPhone builds with price increases, weak U.S. upgrades, and changing device subsidy models; 2) '27 expectations that likely need to move lower for Mac, iPad, and Wearables; and 3) as unit growth likely slows, so will the growth in Apple's user base, likely pressuring Services. At 35x PE, we think AAPL is too expensive for this to occur
In mid-June, Apple CEO Tim Cook told the WSJ in an exclusive interview that price hikes were "unavoidable" because of the memory chip crunch.
While Apple doesn't report gross profit margins for individual products, TechInsights research suggests the margin on the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro was a tidy 47%. Based on estimated costs, to maintain that profit margin for the iPhone 18 Pro, the company would have to charge $1,371. Because the company likes standardized pricing, the starting price tag would more likely be $1,299, yielding a 44% gross profit.
Source: WSJAnd this calculation doesn't account for a potential new camera system that will also cost Apple about 50% more than previous models, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In that case, following the same math, Apple could set the starting price of the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,399, or higher.
KeyBanc's view that consumers may push back on an upgrade cycle because of rising device prices - due in part to the memory chip crunch - is not the best news ahead of the iPhone 18 Pro and foldable iPhone launches in September.
The full KeyBanc report is available to professional subscribers.
Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:20A new study from Affordable Contractors Insurance examined labor market conditions across all 50 states to identify where workers face the greatest challenges replacing a job after voluntarily leaving one. Researchers evaluated unemployment rates, hiring activity, competition for available positions, household income, and local living costs to create an overall risk ranking.
California finished at the top of the list as the most difficult state to recover after quitting a job, followed by Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, according to Affordable Contractors Insurance.
California's combination of a sluggish labor market and high living expenses pushed it well ahead of every other state. The report found there are roughly 1.6 unemployed workers for every available job opening, while the state's unemployment rate stands at 5.5%—the highest in the nation. Employers are also adding workers at a relatively slow pace, with monthly hiring reaching just 3% of the workforce. Meanwhile, everyday expenses remain about 40% higher than the national average, increasing the financial pressure on anyone searching for work.
The ACI data shows that Massachusetts ranked second despite boasting one of the country's highest median family incomes. Researchers found that elevated wages are offset by a cost of living nearly 50% above the U.S. average, while hiring activity trails the rest of the country. Together, those factors can quickly drain savings for workers who leave without another paycheck lined up.
New York claimed the No. 3 spot. Although unemployment is slightly lower than California's, the state continues to face relatively weak hiring alongside living costs roughly one-quarter above the national average. The study suggests those conditions make extended job searches especially expensive.
Pennsylvania landed fourth on the list largely because employers are hiring at one of the slowest rates nationwide. While the state's cost of living is more manageable than many others in the top 10, researchers found that fewer employment opportunities increase the odds of remaining out of work for longer.
New Jersey rounded out the top five. Residents benefit from relatively high household incomes, but those earnings are partially offset by elevated living expenses and an unemployment rate near 5%, creating a competitive environment for anyone entering the job market.
The rest of the top 10 includes Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Kentucky.
At the opposite end of the rankings, North Dakota was identified as the least risky place to leave a job. The state combines one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates—2.6%—with employers hiring about 4% of the workforce each month, giving job seekers a much stronger chance of finding work quickly.
Sean O'Keefe, CEO and founder of Affordable Contractors Insurance, said workers should evaluate how competitive their field is before resigning.
One simple way to gauge the market, he said, is by reviewing similar openings on LinkedIn and seeing how many applicants they attract. If most positions are drawing hundreds of candidates, job seekers should plan for a potentially lengthy search. O'Keefe also recommends securing financial flexibility—such as increasing an overdraft limit or arranging a short-term line of credit—before leaving a job, since those options are generally easier to obtain while still employed.
Tyler Durden Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:05