Investing.com -- Wall Street’s stock pickers face a shrinking playground. According to Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok, the number of public companies is falling, and the firms that do make it to the market are coming in late to the party.

Back in 1999, the median age of a newly public company was just five years. By 2022, it had climbed to eight. Today, Slok notes, the figure has nearly doubled again to 14 years.

That shift isn’t simply a side effect of the Fed’s rapid-fire rate hikes in 2022. Companies are staying private for longer by choice, avoiding the scrutiny, compliance costs, and quarterly performance pressures that come with public listings. Venture capital, private equity, and a deep pool of private capital have made it easier for firms to wait and harder for public investors to access the most dynamic growth stories.

The result, Slok argues, is a public market that’s increasingly dominated by a handful of giant stocks, while passive strategies and correlations march higher. “The reality is that there is no alpha left in public markets,” he says, pointing to the decline of active managers and the concentration of returns in mega-cap tech names.

For investors hunting for outsized gains, that could mean shifting their attention away from traditional stock-picking and toward private markets where the risks are higher but the opportunities for genuine differentiation still exist.

In other words: the public market party isn’t over, but the music has slowed.

Related articles

Apollo’s Slok: ’no alpha left’ as IPOs grow long in the tooth

8 Warren Buffett-Backed Stocks to Navigate September Volatility

Silver: Global Markets Show Signs of a Gold-Like Bullish Run With $44 in Sight