How many stocks truly drive U.S. wealth creation? In his March 2026 paper entitled "One Hundred Years in the U.S. Stock Markets", Hendrik Bessembinder computes investment outcomes for the full lifetime of each publicly listed U.S. common stock over the last 100 years in two ways:
- Buy-and-Hold - compounded percentage return with dividends reinvested.
- Shareholder Wealth Creation - the change in aggregate shareholder wealth while a stock is listed minus the wealth that would have accrued by instead continuously holding 1-month U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills). This measure accounts for net distributions (dividends, spinoffs, share repurchases, share issuances).
Using monthly prices and distributions for 29,754 U.S. common stocks during January 1926 through December 2025, he finds that:
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