Illustration by Hayley Warnham
For a century, Barron’s has been covering the future. And while our centennial is a chance to look back, it’s also a chance to double down on the qualities that got us to 100: helping our readers understand and plan for themes and trends that are most likely to drive financial markets in the years to come.
One theme we’re sure of is that our second century as a publication will be filled with even more transformation than the first, accelerated by technology’s relentless advance, medical breakthroughs, new forms of energy, and other ideas we’ve yet to fathom.
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The next 100 years will birth new companies, but existing companies will also blaze our path into the future. In that spirit, Barron’s has created a new basket of stocks that are likely to be the most influential names in the coming years–it’s called the
Barron’s Future Focus Stock Index
and uses the ticker symbol FOCUS on barrons.com.
The index tracks the modern and evolving U.S. economy through roughly 140 U.S.-listed stocks. It highlights companies leading the way forward, and it incorporates a mix of well-established companies that have adopted technology and strategies to future-proof their businesses as well as newer public companies that are changing the way business is done and influencing consumer behavior.
Barron’s has taken a hybrid approach in coming up with the Future Focus Stock Index, fusing long-term data with qualitative insights from our newsroom.
The data component uses corporate-effectiveness research from the Drucker Institute, a part of Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif. That analysis led us to companies like
(ticker: BAC),
(DE), and
(PG). While banks, tractors, and toilet paper may not be obvious parts of a future index, Drucker’s data identify corporations with a history of effective management, and there’s no more essential ingredient for long-term innovation.
Barron’s, meanwhile, provides the qualitative analysis through the Next 50, an innovation index launched in October 2016 as a way to identify companies shaping the future economy, while also appealing to younger consumers.
Many of the launch names, as chosen by Barron’s editors, are still part of the index, including megacaps
(AAPL),
(AMZN), and Google parent
(GOOGL), along with relative up-and-comers like
(NFLX),
(TMUS), and
(TSLA). The Next 50 will continue to be curated by our newsroom, with regular updates as start-ups list their stocks and other companies are acquired or slip up from an innovation standpoint.
Our aim with the Future Focus Stock Index, which has 138 names at launch and will be rebalanced twice a year, is to give readers a framework for identifying companies that are innovative and built for the long run.
The index runs the gamut from small to large companies, with market values of $1.7 billion (
[GPRO]) to $2.2 trillion (Apple). The median market value is $78.5 billion. Every sector of the economy is represented, except energy and utilities (for now).
Our goal is for the index to outpace the benchmark S&P 500. By historical measures, it has certainly met that mark. From the start of 2016 through April 2021, based on back testing, the Future Focus Stock Index would have had a cumulative return of 257%, versus 127% for the S&P 500.
Past success is no guarantee for the future, but a century of lessons has pushed us to keep trying. And that’s exactly what we plan to keep doing.
Write to Alex Eule at alex.eule@barrons.com
