if you think the stock market is the ticket to membership on the forbes 400 list of the richest americans you are mistaken in fact most of the ultrarich are on the list not because of their stockpicking or markettiming skills but because of their entrepreneurial efforts they turned to the stock market after their fortunes were made with what appears to be the relatively modest goal of maintaining longterm purchasing power of the 400 members on the 2022 list 275 were classified by the magazine as “selfmade” or about 70 consider the chart below which reflects the 1to10 scale that forbes used to rate the 400 members according to how selfmade they were with 10 being totally selfmade the largest grouping 38 of the list members received a rating of 8 meaning that according to forbes they were “selfmade but who came from a middleclass or uppermiddleclass background” examples are jeff bezos of amazoncom amzn and mark zuckerberg of meta platforms meta  this year’s large majority of ultrarich being selfmade is in line with previous years’ lists but it’s worth highlighting because it provides a valuable reality check on the myth that’s taken hold of many investors especially those in gen y and gen z as well as some adherents of the socalled fire early retirement movement that the stock market is an engine that can create forbes400scale wealth to illustrate how unrealistic this is consider what it would take for a stock investor to qualify for this year’s forbes 400 list if we assume a 30year investment horizon with a portfolio that is 100 invested in the sp 500 spx and no withdrawals along the way your portfolio would need to have started with 82 million in 1992 to have amassed a portfolio worth 27 billion today the minimum required to make it onto this year’s forbes list good luck with that many investors might object by pointing to warren buffett ceo and chairman of berkshire hathaway brka brkb  who ranks fifth on this year’s forbes 400 list wasn’t the stock market the source of his incredible wealth yes but his approach of buying entire companies or major chunks of them is hardly one that you or i can emulate so the exception that proves the general rule in any case even my backoftheenvelope calculation is too optimistic since the past 30 years have been some of the absolute best in us history for equity returns if you instead conduct this thought experiment using the stock market’s average annualized total return since 1793 courtesy of the database maintained by santa clara university’s edward mcquarrie you would have had to start with 301 million 30 years ago in order to make it onto this year’s forbes 400 list the forbes 400 and the stock market though these are just hypothetical illustrations they make my point that members of the forbes 400 made it onto the list because of wealth created before turning to wall street and once they did commit to the market their results have been decent but not exceptional consider the performance over the past several years of the forbes 400 list members as a group the table below shows that the group as a whole produced an 88 annualized return over the past six years 23 annualized percentage points below that of the sp 500 additional confirmation that the ultrawealthy are in the forbes 400 because of their prewallstreet activities the bottom line if you want to be on the forbes 400 list several decades from now go out and create something the world needs the stock market will be waiting after you have made your fortune mark hulbert is a regular contributor to marketwatch his hulbert ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited he can be reached at markhulbertratingscom more what will be the bestperforming stocks in january can be bought today because of these two crosscurrents in the market plus will the stock market be higher in 12 months here are the odds