Stockholders didn't do well with most Big Cap indices, but they did a lot than with Big Pharma-which lost $270 billion of market value over five years. Not that life sciences in general wasn't a good place to park your savings. According to our market cap analysis of health care industry segments, you would have done extremely well to have invested in medical devices-the best performing sector in our universe.
It has been a lousy half-decade for investing in America's
largest companies. Take your pick—Dow Jones Industrials,
S&P 500, New York Stock Exchange Index…better to have put
your money into CDs.
But most of these indices would at least have gotten you better returns than Big Pharma. Big Pharma saw a...