The Dutch East India Company opened the world’s first stock exchange in 1602, and the stock market has seen rallies and crashes ever since. The numbers below have been verified and updated as of May 2026.
1. Stock Market Crashes of the Millennium
- The S&P 500 lost over 50% of its value during the dot-com bubble burst between March 2000 and October 2002. The crash lasted 2 years and 8 months.
- In October 2007, the index marked a new all-time high before the financial crisis drove it down over 57% through March 2009. That decline took just 1 year and 6 months.
- In February and March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the fastest major crash in market history. The S&P 500 lost 34% in 33 days.
- From the March 2020 low, the S&P 500 rallied to an all-time high near 4,797 in January 2022, then fell roughly 25% through October 2022 as the Federal Reserve raised rates aggressively to fight inflation.
- The market recovered from that bear market and continued climbing. As of May 22, 2026, the S&P 500 sits at 7,473.47, up 27.93% over the prior 12 months.
The pattern across every major crash is the same: the market eventually recovers and reaches new highs. The question is always how long the recovery takes.
2. Companies With the Highest Market Capitalization
The market cap rankings look nothing like they did in 2023. NVIDIA has taken the top spot by a wide margin, driven by the AI infrastructure buildout. Apple, which led the list for years, has slipped to third. The figures below are sourced from companiesmarketcap.com as of May 24, 2026.
| Ticker | Company | Market Cap |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | NVIDIA Corporation | $5.215T |
| GOOG | Alphabet (Google) | $4.596T |
| AAPL | Apple Inc. | $4.535T |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corporation | $3.109T |
| AMZN | Amazon.com, Inc. | $2.864T |
| TSM | TSMC | $2.098T |
| AVGO | Broadcom Inc. | $1.960T |
| 2222.SR | Saudi Aramco | $1.798T |
| TSLA | Tesla, Inc. | $1.599T |
| META | Meta Platforms | $1.549T |
The combined market cap of the top 10 companies alone exceeds $27 trillion. NVIDIA’s $5.215T valuation is larger than the entire GDP of Japan.
3. Most Frequently Traded Stock
Apple (AAPL) remains the most liquid stock in US markets, with daily trading volume routinely exceeding 50 to 80 million shares. Despite slipping to third place in market cap, AAPL continues to see the deepest order books and tightest spreads of any US-listed equity. For active traders, liquidity matters as much as market cap. Apple delivers both.
4. Most Expensive Price Per Share
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. holds the record for the highest price per share of any publicly traded stock. BRK-A trades around $728,641 per share as of May 2026. Warren Buffett has famously never split the A-class shares in order to discourage short-term speculation. The B-class shares (BRK-B) trade around $486, which is more accessible for individual investors. The difference is purely structural. Both classes represent the same underlying business.
5. The Best Performing Stock of the Past 25+ Years
Amazon remains the benchmark for long-term equity performance. Since its IPO in 1997 at a back-adjusted price of $0.12, the stock has returned approximately 91,000% through 2025. A $1,000 investment at the IPO would be worth roughly $1 million today.
The journey was not smooth. Amazon lost 90% of its value during the dot-com crash. Anyone who bought at the 1999 peak waited over a decade to break even. Long-term compounding at this scale requires the stomach to hold through extreme drawdowns.
6. The Best Performing Sector in the Past Decade
The technology sector has been the dominant force in equity markets for the past decade. The primary engines of that performance were Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, and Meta.
Past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. Technology was the worst-performing sector in the decade following the dot-com crash. Any investor who extrapolated the 1990s tech boom into the 2000s paid a severe price for it. The current AI-driven rally raises similar questions about valuation and concentration risk that are worth monitoring.
7. The Historical Average Stock Market Return Is Around 10%
The S&P 500 has returned approximately 10.7% per year on average since its modern inception in 1957. Adjusted for inflation, that figure drops to approximately 7% to 8%.
Recent years have run well above that long-run average:
| Year | S&P 500 Return |
|---|---|
| 2026 (YTD to May 22) | +9.17% |
| 2025 | +16.39% |
| 2024 | +23.31% |
| 2023 | +24.23% |
| 2022 | -19.44% |
| 2021 | +26.89% |
| 2020 | +16.26% |
Source: Macrotrends S&P 500 Historical Annual Returns, verified May 25, 2026.
The index has delivered four consecutive positive years from 2023 through 2026 YTD, with three of those four years returning over 16%. That run is exceptional by historical standards. Over any long period, the 10.7% average holds, but individual years swing far above and below that line. The S&P 500’s 10-year annualized price return as of April 30, 2026 stands at 13.32%, per S&P Global.
8. Market Seasonality Statistics
Seasonality patterns in the S&P 500 are real but should not be treated as reliable trading signals on their own. Since the year 2000, April, May, and November have historically been among the stronger months. January, June, and September have tended to underperform.
Looking only at the past 10 years, the seasonality picture shifts slightly. April, July, and November show the strongest average returns, while January, February, and September remain the weakest.
September deserves special mention. It is the only calendar month with a negative average return over most long-term measurement windows. Traders have named this recurring weakness the “September Effect.” It is consistent enough to be worth knowing, but not consistent enough to trade mechanically.
9. The Best ETF Over the Past 10 Years
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) dominated the ETF performance charts over the prior decade, returning over 1,000% between December 2011 and December 2022. Since January 2013 through May 2023, it returned approximately 676%, compared to roughly 184% for the S&P 500 over the same window.
The semiconductor sector’s outperformance has continued into the current AI cycle. NVIDIA alone accounts for a significant weighting in the fund and has been the largest single driver of returns. Concentration in any one sector always cuts both ways.
10. Biggest US Industries by Revenue
According to IBISWorld’s 2026 rankings across more than 1,300 US industries, the list looks different from three years ago. Commercial Real Estate has moved into the top spot, a position Hospitals held in 2023. Pharmaceuticals Wholesaling and E-Commerce have dropped out of the top 10 entirely. Property, Casualty & Direct Insurance is a new entrant. Technology still does not appear anywhere in the top 10 by revenue.
| # | Industry | 2026 Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Commercial Real Estate in the US | $1,536.2B |
| 2 | Health & Medical Insurance in the US | $1,531.2B |
| 3 | Hospitals in the US | $1,489.7B |
| 4 | Commercial Banking in the US | $1,482.8B |
| 5 | Drug, Cosmetic & Toiletry Wholesaling | $1,319.6B |
| 6 | New Car Dealers in the US | $1,205.2B |
| 7 | Life Insurance & Annuities in the US | $1,102.6B |
| 8 | Gasoline & Petroleum Bulk Stations | $1,073.9B |
| 9 | Property, Casualty & Direct Insurance | $1,042.4B |
| 10 | Public Schools in the US | $1,020.3B |
Source: IBISWorld, 2026 data verified May 24, 2026.
11. The Largest IPO in History
Saudi Aramco holds the record for the largest IPO ever, raising $25.6 billion when it went public in 2019. That surpassed Alibaba’s 2014 record of $25.0 billion, which itself beat the Agricultural Bank of China’s 2010 record of $22.1 billion.
Saudi Aramco reported a full-year net profit of approximately $106 billion for 2024, down from its record-setting years but still among the highest profits of any company globally.
12. Remarkable Gains of the Leading Stock Market Indices
The major US indices have produced extraordinary long-run returns that are difficult to fully appreciate without the specific numbers.
- The S&P 500 launched on March 4, 1957. Since then, the index has grown over 14,000%. The SPY ETF, which gave ordinary investors direct access starting in 1993, has grown over 1,000% since its launch through 2026.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average was introduced in 1896. The DIA ETF, launched in 1998, has grown over 500% since then.
- The Nasdaq 100 was formed in 1985. The QQQ ETF, launched in 1999, has compounded well above 500% since inception.
The gap between the index’s theoretical long-run return and what individual investors actually captured reflects the importance of when they gained access through investable products.
13. Most Fund Managers Cannot Beat the S&P 500
The SPIVA Scorecard from S&P Global is the most authoritative ongoing study of active fund manager performance versus benchmarks. The most recent data, as of December 31, 2025, is clear:
- Over 15 years: 89.93% of large-cap US fund managers underperformed the S&P 500.
- Over 10 years: 85.59% underperformed.
- Over 5 years: 88.96% underperformed.
- Over 1 year: 78.78% underperformed.
The pattern holds globally. In Canada, 98.82% of Canadian equity fund managers underperformed their benchmark over 10 years. In Europe, 97.02% of European equity fund managers underperformed over the same window.
This is not a knock on the intelligence of fund managers. It is a structural problem. Higher fees, transaction costs, and the mathematics of an average that includes every participant make consistent outperformance extremely difficult to sustain. For long-term investors, the data makes a strong case for low-cost index investing.
14. Market Share of Global Equity Markets
The United States dominates global equity markets by a substantial margin. As of January 2025, the US accounted for the largest share of total world equity market value, followed by China and then the broader European Union. Japan ranked among the top five. Source: Visual Capitalist via Statista, published February 2025.
The US market’s global share has grown significantly over the past 20 years, driven by the outperformance of US technology companies and the depth and liquidity of US exchanges relative to international peers.
15. New York Stock Exchange Has the Highest Market Share
The NYSE remains the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization. Among the largest US-listed companies by market cap as of May 2026, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) leads the NYSE with a market cap approaching $821 billion. The exchange hosts companies across all market cap ranges, from small-cap names to the largest financial institutions in the world.
NASDAQ, by contrast, is home to the technology heavyweights. NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta all trade on NASDAQ, making it the exchange with the highest concentration of the world’s most valuable companies.
16. 35% of Trading Volume Executed Off-Exchange
The SEC’s algorithmic trading report established that approximately 22% of all US equity trades by count, 37% by share volume, and 35% by dollar volume are executed off-exchange. These figures reflect 2018 data, the most recent year for which the SEC has published this breakdown.
| Venue | Trades | Shares | $ Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exchanges | 78% | 63% | 65% |
| Off-Exchange | 22% | 37% | 35% |
Off-exchange trading, including dark pools, allows institutional investors to execute large orders without displaying quotes in the public market. The practical effect is that the prices retail traders see on exchanges do not reflect the full picture of institutional order flow.
17. Robinhood’s Revenue Depended Heavily on Payment for Order Flow
In 2020, $687,094,992 of Robinhood’s total net revenues of $958,833,000 came from payment for order flow, according to the company’s SEC S-1 registration statement. That is 72% of the company’s entire revenue derived from routing customer orders to market makers like Citadel Securities rather than executing them on public exchanges.
Payment for order flow has been a source of ongoing regulatory debate in the US, and has been banned outright in the UK and parts of Europe. The practice raises a fundamental question about whose interests a zero-commission broker is actually serving.
18. US Stock Market Trading Halts
Full market-wide trading halts are rare. Individual stock halts happen daily.
Historical full-market closures include: the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a 10-day closure in 1873 following the default of Jay Cooke & Company, the start of World War I in 1914, and the week following the September 11 attacks in 2001. In March 2020, market-wide circuit breakers were triggered on March 9, 12, and 16 as COVID-19 spread globally.
The NYSE defines three circuit breaker levels, all measured against the S&P 500’s previous closing price:
- Level 1: -7% triggers a 15-minute halt
- Level 2: -13% triggers a 15-minute halt
- Level 3: -20% closes the market for the remainder of the trading day
Individual stock halts are far more common. On January 24, 2023, the NYSE halted 251 listed stocks due to a technical error in the opening auction process. Morgan Stanley dropped from $97.13 to $84.93 in minutes. Walmart and McDonald’s each fell more than 12%. Over 4,300 trades were subsequently canceled.
19. How Much Money Is in the Stock Market
Global equity trading volume reached $160.95 trillion in 2021, making it one of the highest-volume years on record. Q4 2021 alone exceeded $41 trillion in equity turnover, per Statista data through Q4 2021.
The total market capitalization across 10,838 tracked public companies stands at approximately $147.8 trillion as of May 2026, according to companiesmarketcap.com. That figure has grown significantly from the 2021 levels as equity valuations have expanded alongside AI-driven market gains.
20. The Wealthiest 10% of Americans Own 89% of All US Stocks
The top 10% of income earners in the United States own approximately 89% of all US stocks, per CNBC reporting citing Federal Reserve data. Between 53% and 58% of Americans participate in the stock market in some form, up from 32% in 1989.
Participation is heavily skewed by income. Families in the upper half of the income distribution invest in equities at far higher rates than those in the lower half. Much of the broader participation happens through retirement accounts and mutual funds rather than direct equity ownership.
21. Holdings of Publicly Traded Stock Among US Families
The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, covering 2016 to 2019, found that approximately 53% of US families held publicly traded stock in some form. That figure includes direct stock ownership, mutual funds, and retirement accounts. The most recent wave of the survey showed only marginal movement from the prior period.
Families with higher incomes are far more likely to hold equities. Only about 1 in 3 families in the lower half of the income distribution held any stock at all. The gap between equity participation rates across income levels has not closed meaningfully despite the rise of commission-free trading platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average stock market return?
The S&P 500 has returned approximately 10.7% per year on average since its modern inception in 1957, dropping to roughly 7% to 8% once adjusted for inflation. Individual years swing far above and below that line: the index returned 24.23% in 2023 and 23.31% in 2024, but fell 19.44% in 2022. The long-run average holds over long periods, not in any single year.
How often does the stock market crash?
A decline exceeding 50% from peak to trough has happened three times since 2000: the dot-com crash from 2000 to 2002, the financial crisis from 2007 to 2009, and the COVID crash in 2020, which recovered within months. Corrections of 10% happen roughly once per year on average, and a 20% bear-market decline two to four times per decade. None of these follow a reliable schedule.
Do most fund managers beat the S&P 500?
No, the large majority underperform it. Per S&P Global’s SPIVA data as of December 2025, 89.93% of large-cap US fund managers underperformed the S&P 500 over 15 years, 85.59% over 10 years, and 78.78% over 1 year. The cause is structural: higher fees, transaction costs, and the math of an average that includes every participant make sustained outperformance extremely hard, which is much of the case for low-cost index investing.
How much of US stock is owned by the wealthiest Americans?
The top 10% of income earners in the United States own approximately 89% of all US stocks, per Federal Reserve data. Between 53% and 58% of Americans participate in the market in some form, up from 32% in 1989, but participation is heavily skewed by income. Much of the broader participation happens through retirement accounts and mutual funds rather than direct equity ownership.