The average is easy to quote but hard to live up to.
Take a gander at this chart displaying how many drinks the average American downed in the past week. The data is split into ten equal groups from abolitionists to raging alcoholics.
The average across all groups is roughly 10 drinks weekly. Here’s the catch, these numbers give the term misleading a bad name.
The bottom 3 groups or 30% of people, don’t drink. The top group averaged an astounding 74 drinks a week and account for around 74% of all alcohol consumption.
The bottom line is while the average is 10 drinks per week, nobody falls under this category.
A few drink excessively, and many others drink nothing. the average falls somewhere in the middle.
Looking at the average is a perilous game to play. If Bill Gates moved onto your middle class block with 20 houses, this regions average net worth per household would be around $6 billion. This is statistically correct but violates all concepts of reality.
The same applies to this year’s stock market returns.
My colleague, Ben Carlson points out all the dangers of looking at average market returns in this terrific post.
While there has been some normal seasonal turbulence lately, 2026’s returns are nothing to sneeze at.
Ben states:
If you’re a stock-picker in certain areas of the market right now, it probably feels like a bloodbath.
And yet…
The S&P 500 is still up double digits in 2026 — almost 12% on the year.
The average stock is up almost 15% while the median S&P 500 company has risen around 9% this year:
While the market trends up over time, even in good years a multitude of stocks are down double-digits.
2026 is no exception to this rule.
While the “average stock” is up 14.9% this year, 170 stocks in the S&P 500 are down on the year with 86 of them off over 20%.
If investors only owned those 86 issues, their average return and an easy pass would get him a ride on the subway.
These stats prove again, and again average returns are the smart goal for investors. Equally, the lunacy of stock-picking couldn’t be clearer.
Owning an index fund is the best insurance policy for preventing the cardinal sin of investing. There are few things worse than losing money in a year where most people are making it.
I’m sure in 2026 there are many people who fall under this category and will return for more punishment next year.
The AI bubble, Interest rates, etc., will be replaced by a whole new round of 2027 excuses. And so it goes.
Inspecting under the surface for answers is always a good idea when seeking answers to multi-factored and complex problems.
Most of the alcohol in this country is consumed by a small group of drinkers. The majority of stock returns are generated from just a few stocks.
Both impact data equally. The average American doesn’t consume anything close to the average of 10 weekly drinks. Too many investors fail to consummate the average return of the market.
In both cases the average is a headline, not a prediction of what you will experience.
Plenty have learned the investment lesson regarding being average the hard way.
