Skip to main content

Where Have All the U.S. Stocks Gone?

Image
By
A recent Wall Street Journal article, citing a study by the Center for Research in Security Prices, tells us something remarkable about the times we are investing in: the number of stocks on the U.S. market has quietly diminished by more than half over the last 20 years. In November 1997, investors could choose from 7,355 U.S. stocks. Today, there are fewer than 3,600.  

Most of the decline has come from vanishing companies ranging from small to microcap — the sort of names you probably haven’t heard of. Small stocks have diminished from more than 2,500 in 1997 to fewer than 1,200 today. Microcap companies that are even smaller numbered nearly 4,000 in 1997, compared to 1,900 today. Some went out of business, while others were gobbled up by larger companies or private equity firms. Meanwhile, instead of new companies going public to replace those that have retired from the market, venture capital firms are allowing younger ventures to stay private for longer.  

The article talks about several possible consequences. Since the surviving companies tend to be larger and better known, it becomes harder for professional asset managers to get an information edge or find small undiscovered gems that are undervalued. The declining roster of stocks may also mean that a long era of higher returns from small cap stocks compared to larger firms could be coming to an end or somewhat diminished. But the truth is that nobody knows what the investment consequences will be from the quiet shrinkage of investment options, or for that matter, if this trend will reverse itself.  

To Your Prosperity, 

Kevin Kroskey, CFP®, MBA

Adapted with permission from BobVeres.com
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/stock-picking-is-dying-because-there-are-no-more-stocks-to-pick-1498240513

Popular posts from this blog

Diversification: Disciplinarian of Disciplinarians

By
Disciplined diversification works when you do and even when you don't want it to. Diversification in effect forces you to sell the thing that has been doing so well in your portfolio and to buy the thing that hasn't. While this makes rational sense, it is emotionally difficult to execute. Think back to the tail end of 2008--were you selling bonds and cash to buy stocks? Most likely you weren't unless your advisor or some sort of automatic trigger did it for you. Carl Richards of www.behaviorgap.com provided a good reminder of how diversification works in a recent NY Times blog post. The diversification he discusses here is more so related to equity asset-class diversification but also touches on the three basic building blocks--equities, bonds, and cash. He doesn't discuss alternative asset classes -- an asset class that doesn't fit neatly into the three basic categories -- being used to further diversification, but that's a detailed topic for another day.
Read more

The Value of Double-Checking & Monitoring Your Retirement Strategy

By
Motivational speaker Denis Waitley once remarked, “You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions.” That statement certainly applies to retirement planning. Your effort must not waver, yet you must also examine it from time to time. 1       Perhaps you may realize that you under-estimated your health insurance costs and will need more retirement income than previously assumed. Or perhaps, with today's low interest rates you are not getting the level of investment returns you counted on. With those factors and others in mind, here are some signs that you may need to double-check your retirement strategy.     Your portfolio lacks significant diversification. Many baby boomers are approaching retirement with portfolios heavily weighted in U.S. equities. As many of them will have long retirements and a sustained need for growth investing, you could argue that this is entirely appropriate. Yet, U.S. equities by some measures may be over-valued by
Read more

65-80 Year Olds … A New and Exciting Demography

By
Should today’s 70-year-old American be considered “old?” How do you define that term these days? Statistically, your average 70-year-old has just a 2% chance of dying within a year. The estimated upper limits of average life expectancy is now 97, and a rapidly growing number of 70-year-olds will live past age 100. Perhaps more importantly, today’s 70-year-olds are in much better shape than their grandparents were at the same age. In most developed countries, healthy life expectancy from age 50 is growing faster than life expectancy itself, suggesting that the period of diminished vigor and ill health towards the end of life is being compressed. A recent series of articles in the Economist magazine suggest that we need a new term for people age 65 to 80, who are generally healthy and hearty, capable of knowledge-based work on an equal footing with 25-year-olds, and who are increasingly being shunted out of the workforce as if they were invalids or, well, “old.” Indeed, the a
Read more