In this articleMORNFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTTraders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., August 14, 2025. Brendan McDermid | ReutersWith the desire to have private market exposure alongside publicly traded stocks gaining traction among investors, Morningstar has developed a benchmark to reflect the trend.The Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, or the Modern Market 100, is the first to combine public and private equity exposure in one index, the investment research company announced Wednesday. The benchmark is meant to capture the performance of 100 of the largest U.S. companies, broken down to 90 public firms and 10 venture-backed companies, the firm said.The 90/10 skew is designed to reflect what Morningstar considers the modern asset universe, which is one where opportunities are expanding in the private markets and companies such as OpenAI and Stripe are able to stay private for longer.”Companies don’t feel the urge to go public because they can raise a lot of capital,” Sanjay Arya, head of innovation, index products, at Morningstar. “So, to ignore them, I think you’re missing out on some of the fastest, most dynamic companies out there.”Retail investors’ growing access to private markets in Europe could be a double-edged swordThe private equity universe is dwarfed by the value of publicly held companies. The U.S. public stock market is worth roughly $60 trillion, while the U.S. private equity universe is roughly $8 trillion, Arya said. However, private companies may reflect where the economy is heading.”The indexes are supposed to give you an indication about what the economy is, or the market sentiment is, or where people investors should be looking for opportunities,” Arya said. “And you can’t do that on public markets alone if a big chunk of it is outside public markets.” The trend may become even more pronounced. Alternative asset managers notched a big win this summer after President Donald Trump in August signed an executive order clearing the path for alternative assets to be added into 401(k)s. Yet exposure to private assets has been growing for years. According to Morningstar, since 2021, crossover investors including sovereign wealth funds, private equity buyout firms, and hedge funds have been involved in roughly 5,000 private market transactions totaling $450 billion. Arya is hoping the Modern Market 100 will give investors a framework to benchmark performance across both asset cla …
