Tokyo Olympic Medal Compositions: Infographic

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The 2020 Olympics ended in Tokyo, Japan recently. Held during an ongoing pandemic with no spectators present in stadiums this was one of the unique Olympics held in modern times. I came across the following infographic on the medals awarded to winners. The composition of metals that these medals are made up of is interesting. For example, the gold medal is just 1.2% gold. Another fascinating fact is this was the first Olympics in which all the medals were made from recycled materials. It took two years to extract the metals from donated electronic goods and manufacture the nearly 5,000 medals.

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Source: Compound Interest

Race and Ethnicity Prevalence by State 2020: Chart

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I came the below chart from the latest Census data showing the largest, second largest and third largest race or ethnic group in each state of the country. In a handful of states minorities are the majority in terms of population size. For example, in California the largest ethnic group is not White, but rather Hispanic or Latino. Whites are the largest group in states like Maine, Wisconsin, Vermont, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, etc. at over 75% of the population.

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Source: US Census Bureau

Health Care Spending as a Percentage of GDP for Select High-Income Countries, 1980–2019

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The Commonwealth Fund recently published the results of a study comparing the health systems of 11 high-income countries. Some of the factors considered in the study are affordability, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcome. The U.S. ranked the last at number 11. Despite healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP being the highest, the US performed poorly in terms of system performance, outcome, etc.

The following chart shows the Health Care Spending as a Percentage of GDP for Select High-Income Countries from 1980 to 2019:

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Source: Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly, The Commonwealth Fund

The entire report has many other interesting facts.

Four Charts on the Importance of Dividend Investing

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Dividends are an important part of total returns on an equity investments. Though dividend yields and dividend growth rate may seem small in many cases, the power of compounding over the long-term tend to boost total returns significantly. In this post, let’s take a look at four charts that demonstrate the importance of dividends.

1.Total return over the long-term for the S&P 500 has been driven mostly by dividends and dividend growth and NOT due to valuation changes. In fact, from the 1926 thru 2020, valuation changes accounted for just 1.3% of the total annualized return of 10.2%.

2.Dividends have boosted total return even in down markets. When markets are volatile or down, investors can depend on dividends from well-established and solid companies to cushion the blow.

Source: Why dividend investing?, Federated Hermes

3.The compounding effect of dividend reinvestment over the long-term is shown in the chart below. After the dot-com bubble, investors were again attracted to dividend paying stocks and have been rewarded well with this strategy as well.

4.Dividend payers have higher average annual returns and less volatility than non-dividend payers.

Source: The Power of Dividends and Their Compounding Effect, Anchor Capital

Related ETFs:

  • SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)
  • iShares Select Dividend ETF (DVY)

Disclosure: No Positions