Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The stock market is at record concentration levels. A handful of companies are driving market returns. There’s an AI bubble. FAANG stocks. The Magnificent Seven.

The names change, but the message is familiar. Today, much of the attention is focused on a handful of large technology companies at the center of the AI boom. Their strong performance has made them increasingly influential in the U.S. stock market, and the headlines can make it feel like investors need to do something about it.

The concentration is real. But before reacting to it, an evidence-based investor should step back, put on their Long View lens, and ask a more useful question: What does this actually mean for my portfolio?

The S&P 500 Has Become More Concentrated

Concentration, in investing terms, refers to how much of a portfolio is allocated to a particular stock, sector, country, or other category.

By almost any measure, the S&P 500 is considerably more concentrated today than it was a decade ago:

Data as of June 30, 2026; June 30, 2016 for historical S&P 500.

That matters because concentration makes a portfolio more dependent on a smaller number of outcomes. When a handful of companies represent a large portion of your portfolio, unexpected news that changes the market’s expectations for those companies can have an outsized impact on your results.

But there is an important distinction: the S&P 500 is not your portfolio.

A Global Portfolio Looks Different

Hill Investment Group portfolios aren’t built around the 500 largest companies in a single country. They are built globally, with exposure to more than 14,000 companies across 47 countries.

That changes the picture meaningfully:

Data as of June 30, 2026.

Global diversification naturally reduces the portfolio’s dependence on any single company, sector, or country. The companies driving today’s U.S. market concentration are still there—we own them too—but they represent a smaller portion of the overall portfolio.

Diversification doesn’t mean avoiding the biggest or most successful companies. It means not making your financial future overly dependent on them.

If today’s technology leaders continue to thrive, HIG portfolios participate in that growth. If leadership shifts to different companies, sectors, or countries, we own those too. We don’t need to predict which outcome will occur.

HIG portfolios look much more like the global economy, deviating only when the evidence suggests that doing so can improve expected outcomes for investors.

Built for This Already

Your plan isn’t changing, because it doesn’t need to. Headlines about market concentration can make it feel like investors need to respond to something new. Diversification is one of the oldest ideas in evidence-based investing, and your portfolio has been built for markets like this one since the day we put it together.

Your portfolio includes thousands of companies across developed and emerging markets, large and small, spanning every sector of the global economy. It also leans toward companies with characteristics the evidence associates with higher expected returns: smaller companies, lower relative prices, and stronger profitability.

That structure isn’t designed around today’s headlines. It’s designed for a future we can’t predict.
When one part of the market performs particularly well, the portfolio systematically rebalances rather than allowing yesterday’s winners to dictate tomorrow’s allocation. When market leadership changes, the portfolio already owns the companies positioned to benefit.

That concentration story is real. It’s just about a portfolio built differently than yours.

We’re excited about the September 1, 2026, launch of Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life, by David Booth, Chairman and Co-Founder of Dimensional, our oldest strategic partner. Booth and St. Louis native Rex Sinquefield launched Dimensional in the early 1980’s as the first exclusively evidence-based fund company available to the public.

Clients and longtime followers will recognize the words in title because you’ve likely heard them come out of our mouths or read the words in these pages and client letters. Tune out the noise of today’s headlines. Focus on what you can control. And embrace the uncertainty of the market because that very uncertainty is precisely what will reward you as a long-term investor. Hence, it’s why we say: Take the Long View.

In Stay Calm, David shares the lessons, mindset, and stories behind the revolution that transformed investing from a game of speculation into a discipline grounded in evidence and long-term thinking.

Watch this space for details on an exclusive webinar with David Booth. Until then, read what the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barry Ritholtz, and Errol Morris are saying about Stay Calm below.

If you’re trying to instill more calm into your life, join our community or give us a call at 314-448-4023.

“Success—in anything, from fitness to business to investing—comes from discipline and patience, not chasing shortcuts. David Booth, who is a visionary and a great friend, reminds us that staying calm, loving the process, and focusing on what we can control is the real path to lasting results. This book is about building strength the smart way—over time.”

—Arnold Schwarzenegger, longtime Dimensional shareholder

“No one has done more to bring the SCIENCE of investing to the broader public than David Booth. His commitment to understanding markets—through deep, evidence-based, academic research—is unparalleled.”

—Barry Ritholtz, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management

“There was a financial revolution in our time, brought about through a combination of computers, data collection, and theory. David Booth and the University of Chicago were at the center of it. Stay Calm is in part a chronicle of this financial revolution. But more relevantly, it’s a story about scientific principles of investing that shows how easy it is today for anyone to invest well.”

—Errol Morris, Academy Award®–winning filmmaker

We recently sat down with a couple in their 50s who had spent decades building. Careers. A portfolio. A family. They funded education, paid down debt, and prepared for a future that always seemed to require one more year of work and one more dollar saved.

For most of that time, every dollar had a job. Pay down the mortgage. Fund college. Max out retirement plans. Set aside cash for taxes. Invest the next business distribution.

Now their cash flow is beginning to look different. Many of the major assignments are covered, which means more of the next dollar comes with a choice.

They like their work and still have goals. They also care deeply about having time for the relationships that matter to them, especially family, friends, and their own parents.

That led us to a more interesting question:

The next dollar could go into the portfolio. It could pay for help that creates breathing room, fund a longer family visit, support a cause, help the kids, or simply wait until the right use becomes clearer.

The right answer depends on the person.

Every client has some mix of assigned dollars and choice dollars, and that mix changes over time. For someone still building, preferences help determine which goals deserve priority. For someone with more room in the plan, those same preferences can help direct that freedom.

Our founder, Rick Hill, offers one example. Rick spent a good solid decade following what we called the “Rick Hill Plan,” slowly walking down from working 40 hours a week to 10. He still keeps his toe in the water, giving him the community, mental engagement, and fun he gets from work while creating more time for family, friends, travel, and hobbies.

That plan fits Rick. Someone else may love working full time. Another person may want to leave work completely and move toward something new. Research on gradual retirement has found benefits to maintaining meaningful work and connection when the arrangement fits the person.

A financial plan tells us what is possible. Knowing the client helps us understand what those possibilities are for.

One family may buy a second home because it becomes the place where everyone gathers. Another may prefer the freedom to travel anywhere. One client may help the kids earlier because they want to see what the money makes possible. Another may value the confidence their children develop by building independently.

Research supports the importance of this fit. One study examining more than 76,000 bank transactions found that people whose spending better matched their personalities reported greater life satisfaction. The fit between the spending and the person mattered more than how much they spent.

The useful question is whether your spending looks like you.

Money can remain invested. Time with parents, children, friends, and our own health has a season. The way we use our resources influences who receives our attention, what receives our energy, and what we have room to experience now.

Understanding our preferences takes its own kind of work and awareness. Clients rarely arrive with perfectly articulated answers, so we help draw them out.

We may notice that a client lights up when talking about traveling with her siblings and grows quiet when discussing a second home. We may learn that “working less” is really about seeing aging parents more often. We may ask whether helping a child is meant to create opportunity, security, or connection.

We ask questions, listen for patterns, and reflect preferences back. Then we put numbers around the choices so clients can decide with confidence.

• Which trips leave you restored and excited?
• What do you hope helping the kids will make possible?
• Who and what do you want more time for?

The couple we met with is still in the gray. They are becoming more aware of their choices and more intentional about what they want their dollars to do.

Good financial planning helps turn wealth into a life well lived. For clients who are building, that means protecting what matters along the way. For clients with more freedom, it means giving more of their lives to what matters most.

For years, your money had a job. Now you may have more freedom to choose its next assignment.