“He analyzed the price performance of about 26,000 common stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ from 1926 to 2016. Unsurprisingly, 51 percent of these stocks lost their entire value over their lifetime. The majority of businesses should not be in business. Bessembinder’s research demonstrates that since the average common stock will lose its value over time, owning stocks can harm one’s wealth. Our default position should be not to buy. So we don’t. We are lazy. Can you guess the number of those 26,000 stocks, if purchased in 1926 and held until 2016 (or acquired or merged), that beat the market? The answer is about 8,000, or about 31 percent of the universe.17 Again, I was surprised at how high this number was.”