Still Buying the Haystack and Sleeping Well Because I’ll Own The Needles (Winners)

In 2019, I wrote the post Buying The Haystack: Sleeping Well Because I’ll Own The Winners (Needles). Recently, Hendrik Bessembinder updated his previous research with the paper One Hundred Years in the U.S. Stock Markets (SSRN/PDF), which tracked the “investment outcomes for 29,754 common stocks listed on the public U.S. stock markets over the 100-year period from 1926 to 2025”. Some highlights:

• Total Net Wealth created over that period: ~$91 Trillion.
• The 0.2% Needles: Just 46 stocks (roughly 0.2% of the ~30,000 total stocks) were responsible for generating 50% of that $91 trillion.
• The 4% Needles: Only 4% of all stocks accounted for 100% of the net value creation. The other 96% collectively just matched risk-free US Treasury bills – many were complete o...