Long-Term Shareholder Returns: Evidence from 64,000 Global Stocks

We study long-run shareholder outcomes for more than 64,000 global common stocks during the January 1990 to December 2020 period. The majority, 55.2% of U.S. stocks and 57.4% of non-U.S. stocks, underperform one-month U.S. Treasury bills in terms of compound returns over the full sample. Focusing on aggregate shareholder outcomes, we find that the top-performing 2.4% of firms account for all of the $US 75.7 trillion in net global stock market wealth creation from 1990 to December 2020. Outside the United States, 1.41% of firms account for the $US 30.7 trillion in net wealth creation.