If UK stocks have a mission in life, it is to be acquired. For investors in the FTSE All-share index, it is by far the best way to make a good return. Risky Finance has produced some new visualisations to illustrate the effect. First, look at the market cap-weighted cumulative return (year to date) for the entire index. As they get added, different companies pull the return up and down before it settles down to about one per cent (excluding dividends).