Stock market statistics may well be the most important piece of information on the global market. How else would investors know when to connect and trade investments and stock futures? In fact, almost anyone can invest in a stock and profit from it, but they have to be smart about it. It’s like a game of chess — it requires a lot of strategizing, knowledge, and patience.
With the help of this article, you’ll learn everything there is to know about the stock market today and what to expect in the future.
Don’t believe us? Just take a look down below:
Top 10 Stock Market Facts and Figures to Keep in Mind
- The global stock market added $7.25 trillion worth of equity in April of 2020.
- The finance sector in the US is leading in market capitalization with a 19% market share.
- It usually takes a month of recovery time for a 5% to 10% stock market decline.
- The United States stock market accounts for 55.9% of global market capitalization.
- Middle-class families have suffered a 50% plus loss on household equity holdings since 1989, current stock market stats reveal.
- Mortgage rates are at their highest levels, despite the government freezing interest rates.
- The New York Stock Exchange was the leading stock exchange operator for domestic capitalization in Northern America.
- Timeless stock market statistics: September is the worst month for investing.
- CrowdStrike stocks surged by 24% in a single week, thanks to new quarantine measures.
- Shortly after Coinbase’s IPO, its CEO’s shares skyrocketed in value to over $13 billion.
General Stock Market Statistics
1. The global stock market added $7.25 trillion worth of equity in April of 2020.
(World Federation of Exchanges)
From its onset, the COVID-19 pandemic sharply impacted statistics in the stock market, but a rebound came pretty quickly. After a shaky first quarter in 2020, April was a banner month.
2020 would still end up seeing an overall drop in the global markets, but the surge in April just goes to show that the markets are too fickle for even the most seasoned analysts.
2. It usually takes a month of recovery time for a 5% to 10% stock market decline.
(Guggenheim Investments)
What’s more, although deeper declines are quite rare, those over 40% need 58 months of recovery time. This is enough to compromise the entire financial plan of any investor.
In fact, pullbacks of over 20% are generally connected to economic recessions.
3. Timeless stock market statistics: September is the worst month for investing.
(Investopedia)
Among the many fascinating phenomena in the US stock market, the September Effect might just be the most interesting one.
This phenomenon is intriguing because the decline isn’t linked with any specific news or market event. Namely, one theory suggests that the changing seasonal behavior is to blame — most investors were on vacation during the summer (hence, they made fewer trades and are now trying to “cash-in” to regain lost profits).
It’s also worth noting that, in recent years, the September Effect has greatly dissipated.
4. Since 1989, middle-class families have suffered a 50% plus loss on household equity holdings, facts about the stock market indicate.
(A Wealth of Common Sense)
As time goes on, the gap between the different classes becomes wider and more prominent. 1989 marks the year when middle-income households owned 15% of household equity assets.
In 2016, this number went down to just 5%. Things get even more interesting when you take a deeper dive into personal finances and the fact that equity assets of upper-class citizens rose by 5% during the same time period.
5. More than 80% of the stock market is now fully automated.
(CNBC)
Automation is slowly, but surely, taking over every aspect of our lives, and the stock market is no exception. In fact, one of the most interesting stock market statistics is that the vast majority of US trades are now “machine-led.”
State-of-the-art computers are now able to make swift online trading decisions that prioritize sell-offs and short-term movements in place of traditional, long-term outlooks.
6. In Q1 of 2019, share purchases experienced a 22% boom.
(Bloomberg)
In other words, the total value of the stock market increased by over $5 trillion.
Some experts take this as signs that the current cycle is nearing its end. Yet, one thing is for sure — the gap between private investors and corporations is growing ever wider.
The Latest Stock Market News
7. The US stock market “bottomed out” on March 23 of 2020, but prices were at an all-time high a year later.
(Statista)(CNBC)
March 23 2020 saw the Dow hit an almost record low of 18,592.
But, Nasdaq, Dow Jones, and the S&P 500 rallied incredibly quickly in the subsequent year. Nasdaq saw an amazing 95% increase over the period.
It’s fair to say that the pandemic sent waves of consternation throughout the financial world. However, much of the fearmongering never came to pass. The pandemic did little to affect size of the US stock market, which reached $49,107,685.7 in late March of 2021.
A big part of the stock market’s resilience comes from large-cap economic pillars like Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. The tech giants not only weathered the pandemic but ended up profiting in many instances.
8. Mortgage rates are at their highest levels, despite the government freezing interest rates
(Market Watch)
Interest loans have skyrocketed the past week despite the recent fluctuations in the stock and bond markets, as seen in the latest stock trading statistics.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had a 3.65% average in the week ending with March 19, which marks a 29-basis point increase from the week before.
9. Novavax, a US-based vaccine developer, was trading for under $5 in January 2020 and jumped to over $200 per share in January 2021.
(Yahoo! Finance)
Stock market statistics in 2020 were a wild ride, but few could have predicted just how massive a bump pharmaceutical companies would receive.
Novavax is just one example of the dozens of companies that experienced record highs. Experts predict the rampant speculation to continue in the future and affect even ancillary services, such as freezer manufacturers.
10. More stock market facts: CrowdStrike stocks surged by 24% in a single week thanks to the new quarantine measures.
(Market Watch)
Not everyone is taking a hit due to the recent pandemic. On the contrary, this cybersecurity company is enjoying every minute of it (so to speak).
After all, the new work-from-home measures can spell only good things for companies whose services are based on home needs. Work from home stats are very encouraging for employees as well.
11. Seven cents of every dollar traded in 2020 was on Tesla stock.
(Reuters)
Tesla was the most traded company in 2020, thanks in part to entry-level investing apps that produced a massive injection of capital into global stock market statistics. Up to 25% of stock market trading activity in the US during 2020 came from retail investors.
The same investors only accounted for 10% of the trades in 2019.
12. Shortly after Coinbase’s IPO, its CEO’s shares skyrocketed in value to about $13 billion.
(CNN)
Coinbase’s long-awaited IPO was a massive success as investors flocked to get a piece of crypto’s newest darling.
The company’s shares started trading at $381 per share and quickly surged to almost $430 per share before leveling off at $250, according to CNN Money.
Stock Market Stats in the US
13. International equity is held by around 10% of US households.
(A Wealth of Common Sense)
What this statistic shows is that American households have been steadily diversifying in the past ten years. Economic recovery, and less restrictive and costly ways of investing, have fueled the world equity market, boosting it by some 15%.
14. Only about 14% of American families own direct investments in the stock market.
(Pew Research)
Stock market statistics reveal that a vast majority of Americans don’t get directly involved in stock trading. However, that’s not to say that they’re not invested in it.
More than half (about 52%) of Americans are involved in the stock market to some degree through retirement accounts or other indirect vehicles.
15. The New York Stock Exchange was the leading stock exchange operator for domestic capitalization in Northern America.
(Statista)
On top of that, one of the most important stock market facts from 2019 states that the NYSE was the largest stock exchange by market capitalization of listed properties on the planet.
16. The United States stock market accounts for 55.9% of global market capitalization.
(Statista)
The United States stock market has been leading world trade for a long time. The most recent second-in-line is Japan, with a mere 7.4% of the world’s equity value.
China, the United Kingdom, and France round out the top five. Many of the world’s top economies have low market participation, such as Germany (2.65%), partly due to robust pension systems and tax laws that disincentivize speculation.
17. 55% of US adults invested in the US stock market in 2020.
(Statista)
More than half of Americans invested in the stock market in 2020, marking an increase from the previous two years.
Still, according to stock market statistics from 2008, the number of people who were investing peaked right before the crash of 2008 with 65%.
18. The US’s finance sector is leading in market capitalization with a 19% market share.
(Visual Capitalist)
The rise of corporations and tech innovations has moved the vast share of capitalization towards digital solutions. Consequently, the communication sector rose to second place, currently holding 14% of market capitalization.
In third place, we have information tech with 12%.
In addition, healthcare stock futures are also on the rise, holding a stock market percentage of 9%.
19. Stock market statistics in 2021 show the S&P 500 increased in value by 77% since March 2020.
(Nasdaq)
Several indices bottomed in early 2020; the S&P 500 was among them. However, it hit a record high just a year later this past March. While many experts expect the bull market of 2020 to continue, most also agree that it will likely take a breather from the kind of bumper profits of 2020.
FAQs
How are statistics used in the stock market?
There is more than one way statistics can help you in the stock market today.
First of all, they can be used to determine a company’s real value compared to other companies listed on the exchange. This is called the price-to-book ratio.
Secondly, statistics are also used to check the price-to-sales ratio — this shows the real value of every dollar placed on a company’s value of revenue. One of its biggest uses is in projecting sales for the upcoming year and comparing stocks in the same industry.
Finally, the most important role of statistics is to determine the price-to-earnings-growth ratio, which helps you figure out the intrinsic value of a stock.
How many stocks are on the stock market?
The NYSE currently lists 2,800 companies on the US stock market. Combined, these companies would have a joint value of $21 trillion in market capitalization. In turn, this represents the value of all the shares.
In addition to that, both of the two largest exchanges on the stock market are in the US.
What percent of the time does the stock market go up?
The average returns on the stock market are 10%. However, this doesn’t mean that the returns are exactly 10% each year. The stock market performance tends to go up and down throughout the year, having both positive and negative returns.
At the end of most fiscal years, though, the market is generally positive. Meaning, it keeps climbing the following year as well. In the past ten years, the stock market hasn’t always been on the incline, stock market statistics by year indicate, yet it has been on the rise for around 70% of the time.
What is the success rate in the stock market?
Between 74% and 89% of retail day traders with little or no formal education in stock markets lose by trading in contracts for difference. Moreover, individual investors, on average, perform worse than the market as a whole.
However, those numbers generally apply to people making short-term investments in individual stocks.
How much has the stock market dropped in 2020?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, often used as a proxy for the stock market, dropped an unprecedented 8,000 points from February to March 2020.
To the awe of many, though, the DOW increased on the whole from 28,583 points at the start of 2020 to just over 31,000 points at the beginning of 2021.
What percentage of the economy is the stock market?
It depends on how you measure the economy and the stock market. A popular way to do so is to use the so-called Buffett Indicator (after Warren Buffet), which compares the total market cap of the stock market versus nominal GDP.
In the United States, the dollar value of all publicly traded companies’ shares was $49.1 trillion as of April 2020. The GDP in 2020 was $20.93 trillion.
In very rough terms, that means the value of the “stock market” is about 143% of the US’s total economic output.
What Can We Derive from Stock Market Statistics?
The US stock market has always had its ups and downs, accurately representing the state of the world. Things might be looking unstable at the moment with the ongoing pandemic, but that doesn’t mean they’ll always be that way. It’s up to you to decide when you’ll make your first investment and join the share market.
Whenever that may be, keep these stock market statistics in mind to increase your chances of making a profit, and remember to make every decision with plenty of resolve and research to back you up. We’ll be here to help you out.
Sources:
- African Exponent
- Alpha Gamma
- A Wealth of Common Sense
- Bloomberg
- CEIC
- CNBC
- CNBC
- CNN
- Guggenheim Investments
- Investopedia
- Market Watch
- Market Watch
- Nerd Wallet
- Pew Research
- Reuters
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- The Balance
- The Balance
- Visual Capitalist
- World Federation of Exchanges
- Yahoo! Finance
