If you're wondering, FAANG stocks are five of the most popular technology companies traded on the stock market, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google-parent Alphabet. They've driven the S&P 500 along with other familiar — non-tech related — companies.

In this article posted on Oct. 9, 2018, in MarketWatch:

Hendrik Bessembinder, a professor at Arizona State University, last year calculated that just 10 stocks are responsible for more than 16 percent of all the wealth ever created in the stock market, with Apple and ExxonMobil leading on this metric.

Research by Bessembinder, who is the Francis J. and Mary B. Labriola Endowed Chair in Competitive Business, evaluated lifetime returns to every U.S. common stock traded on the New York and American stock exchanges and the Nasdaq since 1926. Get the spreadsheet containing lifetime stock market wealth creation data for each U.S. common stock since 1926, as well as the SAS computer program that generates the data.