Out of 28,000 publicly listed US companies analysed over the last century, the 25 best stocks have created nearly a third of all shareholder wealth. Put another way, just 0.1% of stocks have added over $17.6 trillion to investors’ wallets.

Source: Visual Capitalist
Apple takes the top spot, having created nearly 5% of all shareholder wealth. From the iPod to the iPhone, Apple’s ability to keep innovating has helped it gain a loyal fan base and given the company pricing power. Notably, Apple is America’s most profitable company.
ExxonMobil is the only non-technology company among the five best stocks. When Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999, it was the biggest merger in history and ExxonMobil temporarily became the world’s largest public company by market capitalisation. More recently, the company experienced record profits in 2022 due to high oil prices.
The list also shows how wealth-generating patterns have changed over time. While energy and consumer staples are more frequent among older companies in the ranking, the stocks that have created massive wealth in recent years are more likely to be technology or financial companies.
Given that the names on the list account for only 0.1% of all public US stocks, picking out one of the next long-term winners is a difficult task. 95% of actively managed large-cap funds—which aim to beat the market through stock picking—underperformed their benchmark over 20 years.
Investing in index funds is one possible way to get exposure to top performers. For instance, Apple has been part of the S&P 500 since 1982, about a year after it went public.
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