Magnificent Seven Generated 24.2% of US Stock-Market Wealth Over the Past Century, Study Finds

Latest study from Arizona State University

Top 10 companies generated 29% of investor wealth created in 100 years of US stocks

Tesla rose to No. 9 and SpaceX briefly joined the list as wealth concentration deepened

More than 96% of companies failed to beat Treasury returns

A surge in the market value of a handful of technology giants, including Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, means big tech now accounts for more than 20% of investor wealth created across the full 100-year history of the US stock market. Tesla has climbed to ninth place among the biggest wealth creators of all time over the past nine years, while SpaceX briefly entered the top 30 after its stock-market debut, highlighting a deeper tilt toward technology shares.

The New York Times reported on June 26, citing new research by Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at Arizona State University, that a tiny group of listed companies generated almost all investor wealth created in US stocks since 1926. The concentration of wealth has accelerated further over the past decade as technology companies surged, the newspaper reported.

Wealth has become more concentrated in big tech over the past nine years

Bessembinder measures a company’s “lifetime wealth creation” not simply by its stock-price gain, but by combining that with market capitalization. A 10% rise in a large company creates far more wealth for the market as a whole than the same gain in a smaller company. His research also includes dividends and returns from mergers and acquisitions, and compares those gains with inflation-adjusted returns on Treasuries.

Bessembinder has analyzed listed-company data dating back to 1926 to measure how much wealth companies created for investors over the long term. After first publishing the research in 2017, he updated the results using a full century of data through the end of 2025.

More than 96% of companies listed on US exchanges failed over the long run to beat even the average annual return of 3.3% on one-month US Treasury bills, according to the study. In other words, most delivered returns below short-term government debt, which carries little risk of loss.

By contrast, a small number of mega-cap companies effectively underpinned the market’s overall gains and produced most of the investor wealth created over the past century.

The rankings shifted sharply over the past nine years. In Bessembinder’s 2017 study, the top wealth creators from 1926 through 2016 were Exxon Mobil, Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, IBM, Altria, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors and Walmart, with traditional industrial companies making up much of the list.

In the latest study, the top ranks were dominated by technology firms. The top 10 were Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Broadcom, Exxon Mobil, Meta, Tesla and Walmart. The so-called Magnificent Seven accounted for 24.2% of investor wealth created over the full 100-year period. Among traditional companies, only Exxon Mobil and Walmart remained in the top 10.

Tesla and SpaceX surged up the rankings

Companies tied to Elon Musk climbed especially fast. In the study nine years ago, Tesla did not appear on the list of top wealth creators. It now ranks ninth over the full 100-year period.

More striking was SpaceX. At the New York Times’ request, Bessembinder recalculated the data after SpaceX’s IPO on June 16, and the company entered the top 30 of all time at that point. Its stock later fell and it dropped off the list, but the fact that it briefly reached that tier right after listing was unusual in itself. Bessembinder said returns for very large companies have been extremely high in recent years, and SpaceX immediately after its IPO was a representative example of that pattern.

Apple and Nvidia alone account for more than 10%

Apple alone created 5.5% of all investor wealth in the US stock market over the past 100 years after going public in 1980, the study found. Nvidia, which listed in 1999, generated 5.0% of total wealth, making it the second-largest contributor after Apple. In the 2017 study, by contrast, it took the top five companies combined to reach 10%.

The share accounted for by the top 10 companies also rose sharply. In the latest study, the top 10 generated 29% of all investor wealth created over the past century, compared with 17.1% in the earlier version. The New York Times attributed the shift to explosive growth in technology shares tied to artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

The study also found that this concentration of wealth is creating new risks for investors. As the influence of technology companies grows, even broad market investing is becoming increasingly dependent on AI- and semiconductor-related stocks, making true diversification harder to achieve.

The New York Times said concentrating large sums in mega-cap companies such as SpaceX, whose market capitalization exceeds $2 trillion, carries substantial risk alongside the potential for high returns. History shows that a small number of technology companies such as Apple, Nvidia and SpaceX created enormous wealth, but it also shows that the concentration has increased risk at the level of the overall market, the newspaper said.

The study also underscored how difficult single-stock investing can be. Since most companies fail to outperform even Treasury returns, it is extremely difficult to identify in advance which firms will become future winners.

Son Ju-hyung, reporter / New York = Park Shin-young, correspondent nyusos@hankyung.com