One Corporate Sector, Two ‘Balance Sheets’
Equity market value versus Fed-estimated net worth at current value and historical cost · U.S. nonfinancial corporations · 1945–2025. In 2025, market equity was $88.0T, current-value net worth was $37.1T, and historical-cost net worth was $27.5T. The valuation baseline materially changes the apparent market premium.
What does it show?
In 2025, market equity was $88.0T, current-value net worth was $37.1T, and historical-cost net worth was $27.5T. The valuation baseline materially changes the apparent market premium.
Methodology
Use calendar-year-end observations from Federal Reserve Financial Accounts table S.11.1.b for U.S. nonfinancial corporate business. Total equity at market value (LM103181105.Q) is compared with net worth, defined as assets minus non-equity liabilities (FL102090005.Q). The market premium is the arithmetic residual: total equity minus recorded net worth. Intellectual-property products already recorded at current cost (LM105013765.Q) are retained as context but remain inside recorded net worth. Values are end-of-period and not seasonally adjusted. Add the table's supplementary historical-cost net-worth series (FL102090115.Q). Convert all three year-end levels from millions to trillions of dollars. The current-value and historical-cost measures are two Federal Reserve sector-account valuations, not two company filings. Limitations: This is the U.S. nonfinancial corporate sector, not the S&P 500; it includes a broader corporate and foreign-direct-investment equity universe. The residual is not a direct valuation of patents, brands, software, data, organizational capital, or other intangible assets. It also reflects expectations, risk premia, sentiment, and measurement differences. Recorded net worth already includes some intellectual-property products at current replacement cost, so 'recorded' is not synonymous with 'tangible.' Federal Reserve Financial Accounts history is revised; the source release is pinned so the prototype remains auditable. Historical-cost net worth is not an aggregate of public companies' GAAP shareholders' equity and should not be labeled simply as book value. The three lines use different valuation conventions by design; their differences should not be interpreted as measurement error.