5 Wealth-Building Stocks to Buy With an Inheritance That Will Help Build the Next Inheritance

Baby Boomer Generation Seems

They say "you can't take it with you." Egypt's pharaohs might have agreed to disagree, but the baby boomer generation seems to understand this fact of life.

Financial experts have long expected that over the next two decades, baby boomers (and members of other older generations) will pass along over $100 trillion to spouses, children and other heirs — a phenomenon dubbed the "Great Wealth Transfer."

Trillion Dollar Talk Campaign

We'll see what actually happens when those assets start landing in new accounts, but according to a Citizens Bank survey of 1,500 U.S. adults, the majority (60%) said they'd invest at least part of it. And in a new survey by Morning Consult, commissioned by Kiplinger for our Trillion Dollar Talk campaign, 15% of adult children said they'd use an inheritance to "invest and grow wealth," the third most popular response after providing for the family and investing in a home.

Why not? Many Americans are behind on their own retirement savings, and even those who are on track wouldn't complain about affording a cushier post-career lifestyle. And some in that number might already be thinking several decades down the road when it's time to repay the gesture by passing along their wealth to their own spouses and children.

Survey Respondent Told Morning

As one survey respondent told Morning Consult/Kiplinger, they'd put an inheritance from their parents "into investments," since "that's what pretty much helped them earn it in the first place."

Today, we'll look at five stocks for the task — each of which already boasts a place among the greatest wealth-generating equities of the past century. Data is as of August 28.

Stock-market Wealth Creation

Most stock-market wealth creation has come from a few dozen companies

If you're looking to grow your wealth, there are few better places to start than with a 2026 study from Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business, who researched the investment outcomes from nearly 30,000 stocks over the 100 years between 1926 and 2025. In the report, he outlines the greatest wealth creators over that period.

Constitutes Shareholder Wealth Creation

What constitutes shareholder wealth creation (SWC)?

"The improvement (or decline) in the wealth of a company's shareholders in aggregate over the period that the company's shares were listed on the public stock markets, as compared to the outcome that would have been attained had the invested capital instead earned one-month Treasury bill returns. SWC considers net distributions (dividends, spinoffs, share repurchases, new share issuances, etc.)."

Dan Burrows Explains

Our own Dan Burrows explains that "T-bills are a kind of stand-in for opportunity cost. And the difference [in performance] over time between the two investment choices, when positive, is wealth creation. It's the enhancement."

Importantly, Bessembinder found that wealth creation within the stock market was highly concentrated among just a handful of names. "Just 46 firms account for half of the $91 trillion in net wealth creation over the full century," he says.

46 Firms Bessembinder Identifies

And that's where we'll start our search for stocks that you can use to build your own wealth, to the point where you have something substantial to leave behind for your kids. Each company mentioned here is among those 46 firms Bessembinder identifies and has certain characteristics and advantages that point toward their ability to continue generating returns well in excess of that T-bill benchmark.

Note: Lifetime wealth creation is measured starting at the initial stock-market listing or January 1926, whichever is more recent, through December 31, 2025.

Co

Merck & Co.

Sector: Healthcare

Market Value $366.2 Billion

Market value: $366.2 billion

Lifetime wealth creation: $519.1 billion

Market Total 0.57%

Percent of market total: 0.57%

Merck & Co. (MRK) is a healthcare-sector giant whose roots go back all the way to 1668 with the founding of Germany's Merck Group, which created the American affiliate we all know in 1891.

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The company is responsible for blockbuster treatments and vaccines such as Gardasil (HPV), Januvia (type 2 diabetes), Zoco