Stocks
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 debt | 27.3% |
Real estate | 13.5% |
Savings account or CDs | 12.2% |
401(k) or Roth IRA | 9.9% |
Stock market | 7.2% |
Child's education | 6.9% |
Small business | 6.2% |
Virtual currency | 5.1% |
Education | 3.2% |
Other/Unsure | 8.5% |
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 debt | 22.4% | 25.3% | 33.1% |
Real estate | 15.1% | 14.6% | 11.2% |
Education | 9.9% | 1.1% | 0.3% |
Virtual currency | 9.2% | 4.0% | 3.1% |
401(k) or Roth IRA | 8.5% | 9.4% | 11.5% |
Other/Unsure | 8.1% | 8.6% | 8.7% |
Savings account or CDs | 7.7% | 10.8% | 17.1% |
Stock market | 6.6% | 8.1% | 6.7% |
Child's education | 6.3% | 11.3% | 2.8% |
Small business | 6.3% | 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.
Markets
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.

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.
Company | Sector | Country | Market Cap (USD billions) |
---|---|---|---|
Apple | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $2,777 |
Microsoft | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $2,382 |
Saudi Aramco | Energy | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $2,222 |
Alphabet | Communication Services | 🇺🇸 US | $1,636 |
Amazon | Consumer Discretionary | 🇺🇸 US | $1,385 |
NVIDIA | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $1,074 |
Berkshire Hathaway | Financials | 🇺🇸 US | $774 |
Meta Platforms | Communication Services | 🇺🇸 US | $754 |
Tesla | Consumer Discretionary | 🇺🇸 US | $715 |
Eli Lilly | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $519 |
Visa | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $501 |
TSMC | Information Technology | 🇹🇼 Taiwan | $476 |
UnitedHealth | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $469 |
Johnson & Johnson | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $448 |
LVMH | Consumer Discretionary | 🇫🇷 France | $442 |
JPMorgan Chase | Financials | 🇺🇸 US | $436 |
Exxon Mobil | Energy | 🇺🇸 US | $430 |
Walmart | Consumer Staples | 🇺🇸 US | $429 |
Novo Nordisk | Health Care | 🇩🇰 Denmark | $418 |
Tencent | Communication Services | 🇨🇳 China | $389 |
Mastercard | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $374 |
Procter & Gamble | Consumer Staples | 🇺🇸 US | $361 |
Broadcom | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $344 |
Samsung | Information Technology | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $341 |
Home Depot | Consumer Discretionary | 🇺🇸 US | $335 |
Kweichow Moutai | Consumer Staples | 🇨🇳 China | $319 |
Nestlé | Consumer Staples | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | $319 |
Oracle | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $313 |
Chevron | Energy | 🇺🇸 US | $297 |
Merck | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $276 |
AbbVie | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $267 |
Coca-Cola | Consumer Staples | 🇺🇸 US | $262 |
ASML | Information Technology | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | $258 |
Pepsico | Consumer Staples | 🇺🇸 US | $249 |
Costco | Consumer Staples | 🇺🇸 US | $248 |
L'Oréal | Consumer Discretionary | 🇫🇷 France | $244 |
Roche | Health Care | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | $241 |
International Holding Company | Financials | 🇦🇪 UAE | $240 |
Adobe | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $235 |
Bank of America | Financials | 🇺🇸 US | $233 |
Alibaba | Consumer Discretionary | 🇨🇳 China | $228 |
Hermès | Consumer Discretionary | 🇫🇷 France | $227 |
Toyota | Consumer Discretionary | 🇯🇵 Japan | $220 |
Novartis | Health Care | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | $216 |
AstraZeneca | Health Care | 🇬🇧 UK | $216 |
Cisco | Information Technology | 🇺🇸 US | $216 |
Reliance Industries | Energy | 🇮🇳 India | $213 |
McDonald | Consumer Discretionary | 🇺🇸 US | $208 |
Thermo Fisher Scientific | Health Care | 🇺🇸 US | $204 |
Shell | Energy | 🇬🇧 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.
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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