Not a US quirk.
The same shape everywhere.
Two studies, nearly a century of data. Most single stocks trail a Treasury bill and a sliver carries the whole market.
|
US 1926 to 2016 |
Global 1990 to 2018 |
| Stocks that trailed a Treasury bill | 57 pct | 61 pct |
| Median stock lifetime return | negative | negative |
| Firms behind all the net wealth | top 4 pct | top 1.3 pct |
In the US that was about 1092 firms out of 25300. Together they created 35 trillion dollars of net wealth. The other 96 percent, over nine decades, collectively just matched a Treasury bill. Ninety firms made over half of it. Five made a tenth.