Newbies Investing Questions

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"Most stocks are flops: just 1% of stocks account for all market gains Picking the handful of stocks that deliver the bulk of investor returns is seeking a needle in a haystack"

"Most stocks will cost you money. An even larger number make for lousy bets; instead of being rewarded for taking some risk, you’d likely be better off buying risk-free bonds. At least, that’s the case in the US, said University of Arizona finance professor Hendrik Bessembinder in 2017, following a groundbreaking study examining the performance of almost 26,000 US stocks over a 90-year period.

It turns out this is not a US phenomenon. In fact, results are even worse outside America, according to a new Bessembinder study; all over the world, most stocks end up being money-losing investments. It sounds counterintuitive, given that stock markets have historically delivered the goods for long-term investors. However, Bessembinder’s latest study, Do Global Stocks Outperform US Treasury Bills? – which examines the performance of more than 61,000 global stocks between 1990 and 2018–

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/most-stocks-are-flops-just-1-of-stocks-account-for-all-market-gains-1.3973200