Quite an interesting study made by McKinsey on the impact of sharebuybacks on future growth, and they came to the conclusion that (as it should) makes some sense. The types of industries that are making up the US Stock markets have changed over the past few decades. Here are some snippets and a link to the rest of the article.

That’s not surprising, given how much the makeup of the US economy has shifted toward intellectual property–based businesses. Medical-device, pharmaceutical, and technology companies increased their share of corporate profits to 32 percent in 2014, from 13 percent in 1989.

Here’s another way to look at this: while capital spending has outpaced GDP growth by a small amount, investments in intellectual property—research and development—have increased much faster. In inflation-adjusted terms, investments in intellectual property have grown at more than double the rate of GDP growth, 5.4 percent a year versus 2.4 percent. In 2014, these investments amounted to $690 billion

Source: McKinsey