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This Chart Shows How Different Generations Would Invest $10,000

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This Chart Shows How Different Generations Would Invest $10,000

How Different Generations Would Invest $10,000

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

If someone slipped you a $10,000 check and told you to invest it, what would you do with the money?

With no strings attached, there is a wide variety of ways that you could deploy that cash.

You could look at it as a one-time windfall that could shore up your personal balance sheet, or you could go at it much more aggressively. It’s money that you didn’t expect to receive, so why not throw it at high-risk, high-reward assets?

How to Invest $10k?

Today’s chart is based on a survey from LendEDU, which posed this exact question to 1,000 Americans in March 2018:

Question: If you were given $10,000 tax-free and had the ability to invest all of it in one of the following options, which would you choose?

Here are the results of the sample as a whole:

How to Invest $10K?% of Respondents
Pay down debt27.3%
Real estate13.5%
Savings account or CDs12.2%
401(k) or Roth IRA9.9%
Stock market7.2%
Child's education6.9%
Small business6.2%
Virtual currency5.1%
Education3.2%
Other/Unsure8.5%

Note: We’ve made slight adjustments to the original answers, combining one low-performing category (P2P loans) into the “Other” category

Paying down debt (27.3%) was by far the most popular response. It’s also interesting to see that many people would opt to put the $10k towards their own small business, education, or even digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin.

Now, here’s the same data grouped together by generations:

How to Invest $10K?Millenials (18-34)Gen X (35-54)Boomers (55+)
Pay down debt22.4%25.3%33.1%
Real estate15.1%14.6%11.2%
Education9.9%1.1%0.3%
Virtual currency9.2%4.0%3.1%
401(k) or Roth IRA8.5%9.4%11.5%
Other/Unsure8.1%8.6%8.7%
Savings account or CDs7.7%10.8%17.1%
Stock market6.6%8.1%6.7%
Child's education6.3%11.3%2.8%
Small business6.3%6.7%5.6%

Interestingly, certain answers had the same popularity across the board for all generations.

All groups were equally interested in investing in their small businesses. The highest response here came from Gen X at 6.7%, but Millennials and Gen X weren’t far off at 6.3% and 5.6% respectively.

In addition, investing in the stock market was pretty consistent as well, with Millennials at 6.6%, Generation X at 8.1%, and Boomers at 6.7%. All these groups were mostly interested in doing this through a human financial advisor, though Gen X gave robo-advisors a higher rate of consideration (20%) than other generations (11% Millennials, 4% Boomers)

Generational Differences

Some generational differences are as to be expected. For instance, barely any Baby Boomers (0.3%) wanted to put $10,000 towards their own education. This makes sense, since many are at or near retirement already. On the other hand, 9.9% of Millennials opted for an investment in education.

But here’s a situation that might be a bit more peculiar. One would guess that with student debt being at $1.5 trillion in the United States, many Millennials would opt to pay down debt with their $10,000 check. Interestingly, fewer Millennials (22.4%) chose to pay down debt than either Gen X (25.3%) or Boomers (33.1%).

On the same token, Millennials were more likely to choose either real estate (15.1%) or cryptocurrency (9.2%) as an investment. For contrast, look at Boomers, a group that had 11.2% choose real estate and only 3.1% choose crypto.

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The 50 Most Valuable Companies in the World in 2023

The world’s 50 most valuable companies represent over $25 trillion in market cap. We break this massive figure down by company and sector.

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The 50 Most Valuable Companies in the World

Market capitalization, or market cap, is one measure of a company’s value as determined by the stock market. It is easily calculated by multiplying the company’s outstanding shares by its current share price.

In this graphic, we present a treemap chart that visualizes the world’s top 50 publicly-traded companies by market cap, using data as of Aug. 16, 2023.

Editor’s note: While market capitalization is a simple way to compare publicly-traded companies, it does have some limitations. Most importantly, it does not include debt or cash in the calculation.

Data and Highlights

All of the data we used to create this graphic is included in the table below.

CompanySectorCountryMarket Cap
(USD billions)
AppleInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$2,777
MicrosoftInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$2,382
Saudi AramcoEnergy🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia$2,222
AlphabetCommunication Services🇺🇸 US$1,636
AmazonConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$1,385
NVIDIAInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$1,074
Berkshire HathawayFinancials🇺🇸 US$774
Meta PlatformsCommunication Services🇺🇸 US$754
TeslaConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$715
Eli LillyHealth Care🇺🇸 US$519
VisaInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$501
TSMCInformation Technology🇹🇼 Taiwan$476
UnitedHealthHealth Care🇺🇸 US$469
Johnson & JohnsonHealth Care🇺🇸 US$448
LVMHConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$442
JPMorgan ChaseFinancials🇺🇸 US$436
Exxon MobilEnergy🇺🇸 US$430
WalmartConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$429
Novo NordiskHealth Care🇩🇰 Denmark$418
TencentCommunication Services🇨🇳 China$389
MastercardInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$374
Procter & GambleConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$361
BroadcomInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$344
SamsungInformation Technology🇰🇷 South Korea$341
Home DepotConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$335
Kweichow MoutaiConsumer Staples🇨🇳 China$319
NestléConsumer Staples🇨🇭 Switzerland$319
OracleInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$313
ChevronEnergy🇺🇸 US$297
MerckHealth Care🇺🇸 US$276
AbbVieHealth Care🇺🇸 US$267
Coca-ColaConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$262
ASMLInformation Technology🇳🇱 Netherlands$258
PepsicoConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$249
CostcoConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$248
L'OréalConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$244
RocheHealth Care🇨🇭 Switzerland$241
International Holding CompanyFinancials🇦🇪 UAE$240
AdobeInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$235
Bank of AmericaFinancials🇺🇸 US$233
AlibabaConsumer Discretionary🇨🇳 China$228
HermèsConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$227
ToyotaConsumer Discretionary🇯🇵 Japan$220
NovartisHealth Care🇨🇭 Switzerland$216
AstraZenecaHealth Care🇬🇧 UK$216
CiscoInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$216
Reliance IndustriesEnergy🇮🇳 India$213
McDonaldConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$208
Thermo Fisher ScientificHealth Care🇺🇸 US$204
ShellEnergy🇬🇧 UK$204

From this data, we can see that there are only a handful of trillion dollar companies in the world, including Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia.

Two former members of the trillion dollar club are Meta and Tesla, but both companies currently hover around the $700 billion range in terms of market capitalization. In 2022, Meta lost significant value as its earnings fell, while Tesla suffered from demand concerns.

Altogether, the 50 most valuable companies represent over $26.5 trillion in shareholder value. At a sector level, Information Technology is the most represented in the top 50, with $9.3 trillion in combined market cap. The next biggest sectors are Consumer Discretionary ($4.0 trillion) and Health Care ($3.3 trillion).

Geographical Breakdown

At a geographical level, the majority of the 50 most valuable companies are American. The following chart shows each country’s tally.

Most valuable companies by country

After the U.S., the three most represented countries are Switzerland, France, and China, with three companies apiece.

From Switzerland are companies such as Nestlé, Roche, and Novartis. The latter two are major players in the healthcare industry.

France’s companies in the top 50 list all belong to the Consumer Discretionary sector, and include fashion giants LVMH and Hermès, as well as L’Oréal, a global leader in cosmetics. Earlier this year, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault was officially the richest person in the world with a fortune of $215 billion.

Finally, from the Chinese side are two globally-recognized names in Tencent and Alibaba. China’s third company on this list is Kweichow Moutai, a partially state-owned producer of alcoholic beverages.

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