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Here are 50 facts from the second half of 2025.

Trade & Labor Market

World trade declined by roughly 66% between 1929 and 1934. Link

Hourly workers represent about 55% of the U.S. workforce. Link

Over the past three years, the number of people describing themselves as travel agents or advisers on LinkedIn increased by more than 50%, making it the fifth-fastest growing profession over that time. Link

The telecommunications industry employed more than 340,000 switchboard operators in the 1950s. Today, just 5,000 have that job. Link

After the ATM was introduced in the early 1970’s, teller jobs grew faster than the general labor force for the next three decades. Source: Citi

Personal Finance

Nearly 10 million American children are living in poverty, the most since 2018, according to the latest Census Bureau figures from 2023. Link

Currently, about 15% of 26-year-olds are uninsured, the highest rate of any age group. Link

~ 25% of the US adult population have a FICO score below 660. Link

The club of ultrahigh net worth individuals with more than $30 million in assets hit a record in 2024. The U.S. added more than 1,000 millionaires every day last year on average. The billionaire club grew more than 50% between 2015 and 2024. Source: Altrata, UBS, WSJ

In 1960, spending on housing, healthcare and tuition made up 22% of consumer spending for the average US household. Today those spending categories make up 37%. Link

Investing

If you randomly picked a trading day for the Dow Jones Industrial Average between 1930-2020, there is over a 95% chance that the Dow would close lower on some trading day in the future. That means that roughly 1 in 20 trading days would provide you with an absolute bargain. The other 19 would give you the feeling of buyer's remorse at some point in the future. Link

More than 10 funds will distribute at least 25% in capital gains this year. Link

Since the 1990s, the World Portfolio has grown from 75% to over 200% of world GDP. Link

Of the largest 10 stocks in the S&P 500 Index in 1985, none are still in the top 10. Link

The Thiel Fellowship has a 5.9% Unicorn hit rate. Link

Just 3% of companies generated all the shareholder wealth in the US stock market from 1926-2022. Source: Bessembinder

If you break down the distribution of cumulative returns for stocks in the S&P 500 for the past 25 years:

• The median/arithmetic return was 59%/452%.

• The average return has been greater than the median for The S&P 500’s constituents in 20 out of the past 24 years. Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices

In 1812, financial stocks—banks and insurance companies—constituted an estimated 71% of total U.S. stock-market capitalization. No other sector even amounted to 14%. Link

Alternative Investing

There are more private equity funds than McDonald's restaurants in the world. Link

Nearly half of gold production is used for jewelry. Link

39% of U.S. land area is used by farms, totaling 876 million acres of farmland. Link

On Jan. 1, 2015, there were 1,345 alternative mutual funds in existence. Only 341 still existed on June 30, 2025 - a 75% mortality rate. Link

In 2021 alone, 478 (30.7%) of all U.S. unicorns hit the $1B mark. Link

Most unicorns exit after a median (average) of 8 (9) years, counting from founding. “Exit” means going public, acquisition, or liquidation/bankruptcy. Link

Companies

Apple has bought back $709 billion in stock over the past 10 years, which is greater than the market cap of 487 companies in the S&P 500. Link

In fiscal year 2025, Costco sold over 245 million hotdog combos, over 157 million rotisserie chickens, and enough bath tissue to reach the moon and back over 200 times. Link

Less than 3% of people who played Pokémon GO enabled the augmented reality functionality. Link

Only 16.1% of consumers opening either Uber or Lyft also also open the other. Link

TiVo ended sales of its physical video devices on October 1, 2025. Link

In the quarter from April to June, American Express wrote a check to Delta for roughly $2.1 billion—equivalent to the airline’s total operating profit. Link

Walmart, Kroger, Aldi and Albertsons own a third of all U.S. grocery stores locations. Link

Renewal rates for .com and .net are in the 75% to 80% range, much higher than the 20% to 25% renewal rate of new domain names. VeriSign today operates ~ 157 million .com and 13 million .net domain names, accounting for about 46% of global domain registrations. Link

Countries

Canada does not hold any gold in its official reserves. Link

There are more robots working in China than the rest of the world combined. Link

The number of children in Chinese kindergartens has fallen by a quarter in four years, prompting the closure of tens of thousands of preschools in the country as a precipitous drop in births hits the education system. Link

The U.S. spends more on healthcare per capita than other nations. Link

The US has built more commercial nuclear reactors in the past 25 years (two) than it has major commercial airports (none), even though air travel increased by almost 50% over that period. Link

“More than 60% of single-family houses in the United States were built more than 35 years ago.” Link

AI

The equivalent of about $1,800 per person in America will be invested this year on A.I. Link

There are about 5,426 data centers in the US, and in Germany there are 529. Link

Anguilla (population 15,000) has an official country top-level domain code for the internet of .ai. Domain name registrations have surged from 48,000 in 2018 to 870,000 in the year to date and that source of revenue alone now accounts for nearly 50% of state revenues. Link

Socioeconomics

12th grade girls are less likely than boys to say they want to get married someday. Link

One in 5 American adults is illiterate. Fifty-four percent of adults read below a sixth-grade level. Link

"...there are now companies such as Pride & Prejudoodles, based in Virginia, charging more than $15,000 to deliver a fully trained doodle of “therapeutic quality..." Link

Miscellaneous

U.S. pedestrian deaths have risen 80% since 2009. Link

A majority of people in the U.S. wrongly believe that nicotine is the substance in cigarettes that causes cancer. Link

Cigarette filters are 'the single most littered item on the planet.' Link

As of the end of 2024, the US cattle herd size reached the lowest level on record and is more than 30% smaller than the peak size it reached in 1974, and only four-fifths of the average size from 1973 to 2024 despite rising cattle prices over the same period. Link

Players who lose in the first round of the U.S. Open singles draws earn $110,000 for their participation. That number is nearly triple the $39,500 awarded in 2015 and more than seven times the $15,000 from 2005. Link