Are passives distorting US market performance?

A few top-performing stocks drive stock market gains, according to an ASU researcher.

In this story published April 13, 2023, on UK Daily News:

The fact that some stocks drove the entire market isn't as unusual as you might think. It turns out that the top-performing 4% of publicly traded companies explain virtually all of the U.S. stock market's net gains since 1926. That's according to research by Hendrik Bessembinder, a professor at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business. The other 96% earn, on average, the interest rate of a one-month U.S. Treasury bill.

– Hendrick Bessembinder, professor and Francis J. and Mary B. Labriola Chair in Competitive Business