Increasing Concentration of Wealth Growth Among Stocks

Do the stocks that dominate shareholder wealth-building (accounting for share price changes, dividends, repurchases/new share issuances and investor money flows) increasing concentrate within a small pool? In his May 2023 paper entitled “Shareholder Wealth Enhancement”, Hendrik Bessembinder identifies the stocks with the largest increases and largest decreases in shareholder wealth since 1926. He examines the degree to which increases in shareholder wealth concentrate among stocks over time. Using monthly data (including delisting returns) for 28,114 publicly traded U.S. common stocks and contemporaneous 1-month U.S. Treasury bill yield as a benchmark during 1926 through 2022, he finds that:

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