US Stock Market Nasdaq Index From 1926 to now, there have been over 26,000 stocks in the US stock market. Among them, 57%—which means 4 out of every 7 stocks—have lifetime returns that didn’t even beat bank deposits. Some individual stocks’ lifetime returns are worse than just putting your money in the bank or buying government bonds. So why has the overall US stock market risen so much? Because all the gains were created by just 4% of the stocks. Out of the 26,000 stocks, roughly 1,000 contributed all of the net returns for the entire US stock market. The remaining 25,000 combined? Their returns equal zero. Even more shocking, just 86 stocks created half of the wealth in the US stock market—$16 trillion. This data comes from research by Arizona State University professor Bessembinder, published in the *Journal of Financial Economics*. It’s one of the most cited finance papers in the past decade. So what are we really betting on when we pick individual stocks? We’re betting that we can find that 4% among the 26,000. But if you buy the S&P or Nasdaq index, you’re directly capturing all the biggest winners within that 4%, without missing a single one. That’s why it’s crucial to allocate S&P and Nasdaq as your core holdings. Don’t focus on how much others are making on individual stocks—whether they can hold onto those gains in the long run is unknown, and it might just be survivor bias. Your core portfolio must include some index funds, and you need to hold them long-term. Let the money generated by the market push us forward.