Cumulative Outcomes for All U.S. Common Stocks

What is the distribution of U.S. common stock outcomes over the past century? In the July 2024 draft of his paper entitled “Which U.S. Stocks Generated the Highest Long-Term Returns?”, Hendrik Bessembinder presents cumulative returns and compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for all 29,078 publicly listed U.S. common stocks in the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) databases through 2023, from initial appearance in CRSP until delisting or the end of the sample period. He assumes immediate reinvestment of all dividends. Using daily price/dividend data for all U.S. common stocks during December 1925 through December 2023, he finds that:

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