Markets
How Gender Diversity Enhances the Bottom Line
How Gender Diversity Leads to a Bigger Bottom Line
Despite making up half of the population and 47% of the labor force, women remain highly underrepresented in the top echelons of business.
- 5% of the richest billionaires are women
- 6% of S&P 500 companies have women CEOs
- 20% of Fortune 500 board members are women
There are many arguments that can be made for closing this gender gap, but the most compelling one is very simple: there’s a growing body of research that shows that gender diverse companies make more money.
Women and Profit
Today’s infographic comes to us from Evolve ETFs, a company that has launched an ETF focused on gender diversity, and it shows that companies with more women in senior roles are making better decisions and ultimately higher profits.
Better Decisions
The more diverse a team is, the more likely it is to make the best business decision. Logically, this makes sense, since multiple perspectives are considered this way – and groupthink can be avoided.
There have been various studies on decision-making that show this, but one compelling example highlighted by Forbes covers 600 business decisions made by 200 different teams over a two year span. This research found that more diverse and inclusive teams made better decisions up to 87% of the time, took less time to make the decision, and delivered 60% better results.
Better Bottom Line
Not surprisingly, making better business decisions leads to bigger returns, as well. Credit Suisse, for example, found that boards with more women had a 36% higher return on equity.
Meanwhile, research from Morgan Stanley found that the top-third of companies (that hire the most women) had 2% higher equity returns than average.
A final study worth noting is from The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington, D.C. think tank, which shows that companies with at least 30% female leaders end up raking in 6% higher net margins.
Future Growth
On the company level, gender diversity means more profit and better decisions – but what could this mean in aggregate?
Global management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company offers up a rosy picture: they figure that if the gender gap is closed in their “full potential” scenario, up to $28 trillion extra could be added to global GDP growth by 2025.
Markets
Ranked: The World’s 50 Most Valuable Companies in October 2025
We visualized the world’s most valuable companies in Oct. 2025, led by Nvidia and the booming artificial intelligence industry.
Ranked: The World’s 50 Most Valuable Companies in October 2025
See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Key Takeaways
- Nvidia has pulled ahead of the rest of its Magnificent Seven peers, nearing an historic $5T valuation.
- Rival chipmaker AMD has surpassed $400B for the first time, riding off a series of catalysts including an OpenAI chip deal and a quantum computing deal with IBM.
The world’s most valuable companies have continued to grow larger in 2025, with the tech sector’s prevalence more profound than ever.
To see how things look as we approach the final two months of the year, we’ve ranked the top 50 companies by their market capitalization as of Oct. 24, sorted by industry.
Data & Discussion
The data for this visualization was sourced from CompaniesMarketCap, a simple and effective tool for tracking real-time market capitalization of publicly-traded firms.
| Name | Sector | Market Cap |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 Amazon | Consumer Discretionary | $2,391,180,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Tesla | Consumer Discretionary | $1,442,470,000,000 |
| 🇨🇳 Alibaba | Consumer Discretionary | $405,129,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Home Depot | Consumer Discretionary | $384,896,000,000 |
| 🇫🇷 LVMH | Consumer Discretionary | $355,009,000,000 |
| 🇫🇷 Hermès | Consumer Discretionary | $268,064,000,000 |
| 🇯🇵 Toyota | Consumer Discretionary | $267,678,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Walmart | Consumer Staples | $846,478,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Costco | Consumer Staples | $413,105,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Procter & Gamble | Consumer Staples | $356,901,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Coca-Cola | Consumer Staples | $299,892,000,000 |
| 🇨🇭 Nestlé | Consumer Staples | $259,050,000,000 |
| 🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco | Energy | $1,667,830,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Exxon Mobil | Energy | $491,936,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Chevron | Energy | $313,426,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Berkshire Hathaway | Financials | $1,061,810,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 JPMorgan Chase | Financials | $817,858,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Visa | Financials | $674,244,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Mastercard | Financials | $518,604,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Bank of America | Financials | $385,308,000,000 |
| 🇨🇳 Agricultural Bank of China | Financials | $381,791,000,000 |
| 🇨🇳 ICBC | Financials | $364,370,000,000 |
| 🇳🇱 Prosus | Financials | $302,205,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Wells Fargo | Financials | $272,100,000,000 |
| 🇨🇳 China Construction Bank | Financials | $271,816,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Morgan Stanley | Financials | $260,701,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Eli Lilly | Health Care | $739,980,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Johnson & Johnson | Health Care | $458,730,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 AbbVie | Health Care | $402,758,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 UnitedHealth | Health Care | $328,307,000,000 |
| 🇨🇭 Roche | Health Care | $272,998,000,000 |
| 🇬🇧 AstraZeneca | Health Care | $259,460,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 General Electric | Industrials | $320,526,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 NVIDIA | Technology | $4,534,870,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Apple | Technology | $3,900,350,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Microsoft | Technology | $3,892,040,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Alphabet | Technology | $3,146,160,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Meta | Technology | $1,854,860,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Broadcom | Technology | $1,672,330,000,000 |
| 🇹🇼 TSMC | Technology | $1,529,820,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Oracle | Technology | $807,715,000,000 |
| 🇨🇳 Tencent | Technology | $744,318,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Netflix | Technology | $463,856,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Palantir | Technology | $438,006,000,000 |
| 🇰🇷 Samsung | Technology | $437,015,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 AMD | Technology | $410,450,000,000 |
| 🇳🇱 ASML | Technology | $400,995,000,000 |
| 🇩🇪 SAP | Technology | $313,919,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 IBM | Technology | $286,405,000,000 |
| 🇺🇸 Cisco | Technology | $279,214,000,000 |
Nvidia’s Rise to $4.5 Trillion
Nvidia leads the world with a staggering valuation of $4.53 trillion, surpassing both Apple ($3.9 trillion) and Microsoft ($3.89 trillion).
Nvidia GPUs remain the backbone of AI model training, with customers like OpenAI committing billions of dollars to buy its chips.
Nvidia has also committed to investing $100 billion in OpenAI to build more data centers, raising concerns about the circular nature of recent deals between major AI players.
OpenAI is currently the world’s most valuable private tech company, valued at $500 billion.
AI is Everywhere
The AI craze is creating many more winners than just Nvidia.
For example, in early October, AMD and OpenAI announced a strategic partnership to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs. A week later, OpenAI followed up with a strategic collaboration with Broadcom to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI chips.
Broadcom shares are up 56% year to date, while AMD has rocketed 115% (its shares climbed 43% the week of the OpenAI announcement).
On the software side, Palantir has quickly risen to become the world’s 45th most valuable company, setting record-breaking P/E and P/S ratios along the way. The firms develops AI platforms that digest vast amounts of data to make predictive insights.
Palantir has been the best-performing S&P 500 stock since its addition to the index in September 2024, and has climbed 1,956% since its October 2020 IPO.
Learn More on the Voronoi App 
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Average S&P 500 Returns by Zodiac Year on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.
Markets
Mapped: Average Mortgage Rates Across the U.S. in 2025
New Jersey tops the nation with the highest average mortgage rate.
Mapped: The Average Home Mortgage Across U.S. States in 2025
See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Key Takeaways
- New Jersey tops the nation with the highest average mortgage rate (6.85%) in Q2 2025.
- Alabama saw the largest quarter-over-quarter decrease in average mortgage rates (−16.7%).
After two years of high borrowing costs, mortgage rates eased in Q2 2025 across most U.S. states. Still, buying a home remains difficult. The median age of homebuyers has climbed from 30 in 2010 to a record 38 in 2024, showing that more Americans are entering the housing market later in life.
In this map, we chart the average home mortgage rate by state, based on data from WalletHub.
New Jersey Leads
At 6.85%, New Jersey has the highest average rate in Q2 2025. This lines up with its expensive housing market and one of the highest property tax burdens in the country. Nearby high-cost states like Connecticut (6.48%) and New York (6.25%) also sit near the top.
| State | Average Rate (Q2 2025) | Change (Q1-Q2 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | 6.85% | -8.86% |
| Nebraska | 6.50% | -14.20% |
| Connecticut | 6.48% | -9.30% |
| Texas | 6.44% | -7.71% |
| New Hampshire | 6.37% | -10.36% |
| Kansas | 6.35% | -13.58% |
| New York | 6.25% | -9.05% |
| Florida | 6.20% | -10.45% |
| Illinois | 6.20% | -10.82% |
| Louisiana | 5.96% | -14.88% |
| Oklahoma | 5.90% | -13.45% |
| Rhode Island | 5.78% | -9.87% |
| Massachusetts | 5.73% | -9.07% |
| Georgia | 5.67% | -10.62% |
| South Dakota | 5.59% | -12.85% |
| Minnesota | 5.58% | -10.72% |
| Ohio | 5.54% | -15.91% |
| Maryland | 5.51% | -11.12% |
| Missouri | 5.51% | -14.13% |
| Pennsylvania | 5.47% | -13.28% |
| Iowa | 5.46% | -16.35% |
| Montana | 5.38% | -12.52% |
| Vermont | 5.38% | -6.73% |
| Michigan | 5.37% | -12.95% |
| Mississippi | 5.35% | -16.47% |
| Washington | 5.34% | -10.30% |
| Colorado | 5.27% | -10.52% |
| North Dakota | 5.16% | -13.75% |
| Virginia | 5.16% | -12.91% |
| Alaska | 5.15% | -12.95% |
| Maine | 5.13% | -13.07% |
| New Mexico | 5.13% | -15.18% |
| Kentucky | 5.11% | -14.07% |
| Indiana | 5.06% | -16.34% |
| Wisconsin | 5.03% | -8.43% |
| North Carolina | 5.02% | -14.36% |
| Arkansas | 4.98% | -15.73% |
| Wyoming | 4.98% | -10.07% |
| Oregon | 4.96% | -11.15% |
| South Carolina | 4.88% | -13.85% |
| Alabama | 4.82% | -16.65% |
| Tennessee | 4.79% | -13.08% |
| Delaware | 4.65% | -15.80% |
| Nevada | 4.61% | -13.28% |
| West Virginia | 4.58% | -13.29% |
| Arizona | 4.56% | -13.86% |
| California | 4.56% | -9.42% |
| Utah | 4.54% | -11.76% |
| Hawaii | 4.48% | -8.87% |
| Idaho | 4.35% | -14.24% |
Meanwhile, a cluster of Western and Southern states anchor the lower end: Idaho (4.35%), Hawaii (4.48%), Utah (4.54%), California (4.56%), Arizona (4.56%), and South Carolina (4.88%).
Largest Quarter-Over-Quarter Movers
When comparing to Q1 2025, the biggest relative drop in mortgage rates occurs in Alabama (−16.7%), followed by Iowa (−16.4%), Indiana (−16.3%), Ohio (−15.9%), and Delaware (−15.8%).
Several Plains and Midwestern states—Nebraska (−14.2%), Kansas (−13.6%), and Missouri (−14.1%)—also recorded steep declines.
Market Expectations
After a Federal Reserve rate cut and a drop in 10-year Treasury yields, the average rate on 30-year mortgages has settled in the mid to low 6% range, down from nearly 7% earlier in the year.
Most forecasts expect rates to stay steady through the rest of 2025. The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts the average 30-year rate will end the year at 6.5%, while Fannie Mae projects 6.4%.
Learn More on the Voronoi App
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out America’s Home Buyers by Generation on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.
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