, Columnist
Winner-Take-All Phenomenon Rules the Stock Market, Too
Any gains are attributable to a relative handful of companies.
One of the few.
Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The winner-take-all phenomenon is well-documented among sports stars, pop singers, fiction authors, actors and hedge-fund managers -- those at the top reap fabulous rewards while everyone else scrapes to get by.
It turns out the same hold true in the stock market: Just 1.3% of the world’s public companies account for all the market gains during the past three decades. Outside the U.S., the gains are even more concentrated, with less than 1% of all equities driving all of the net appreciation in share prices.