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Mastercard, founded in 1966, is one of the world’s largest payment-services companies. It issues credit and debit cards under the Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus brands. It has more than 800 million cards in circulation, and recorded $5.9 trillion in gross dollar volumes in 2018, according to its annual report. The leading entertainment company founded a studio in 1923, and there has been no looking back since then. Walt Disney has adapted to the changing landscape in the entertainment industry by making significant acquisitions in the last few decades. It now also provides online content, which could sustain its revenue going forward.
But it does generate a river of reliable free cash flow, which it returns to shareholders in the form of generous dividends. And MO’s strategy of diversification and innovation has allowed it to deliver steady, if incremental, top-line growth. But what really changed the company’s fortunes was its often painful transition away from traditional software licensing to providing cloud-based services. It took a while for the market to buy into Oracle’s transformation story, but once it did, the stock returned to its market-beating ways. Analysts project the company to deliver average annual earnings per share growth of 8.4% over the next three to five years. CELG shares were worth around $99.59 in February 2016, but after the adjustment for dividends and stock splits, their worth was only 70 cents in February 1996.
SEE ALSO: 12 Stocks Paying Dividends for 100 Years or More
The original AT&T Corp. was a classic example of a widows-and-orphans stock. It paid generous dividends and carried low risk; in other words, it was an ideal investment for those who needed income and could ill afford to lose principal. AT&T Corp. shares served widows, orphans and many others admirably for generations. Then known as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the stock first joined the Dow in 1916. It was dropped from the industrial average in 1928, added back in 1939, and dropped again in 2004.
The company is best known, however, for its over-the-counter consumer brands including Listerine mouthwash, Tylenol pain reliever and Johnson’s Baby shampoo. Founded in 1886 by three brothers, the company created the first commercial first aid kits and it was the first to mass-produce dental floss – all before 1900. Somewhat surprisingly, J&J wasn’t added to the Dow until 1997, even though shares had been publicly traded since 1944.
Joining the likes of Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb on this list of top-performing stocks is fellow drug maker Abbott Labs. The company has a long and eventful history that dates to its founding in 1888. Abbott first paid a dividend in 1924, and it has raised its payout annual for the last 46 years in a row. Its many decades as a dividend-paying public company have certainly attributed to the extraordinary lifetime returns of its stock.
Let’s look at each stock’s history to see why they’ve been among the best performers in stock market history. Sectors with less representation in the top 20 are communication services , as well as consumer staples, financials, and real estate . Fourth place company Transdigm Group gains its stronghold by developing specialized products for the aerospace industry. It has a strong acquisition strategy as well, having acquired over 60 businesses since its formation in 1993. The company earned a staggering 3,767% return over the last ten years, meaning an initial $100 investment would now be worth almost $4,000.
We will cover everything that you need to know about the best performing stocks in this important guide to the stock market . If you have, then you have already been introduced to value investing and its king! The art of picking stocks that appear to be trading at a significant discount to their intrinsic value has been at the heart of many investing str… Investments involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
Under the visionary leadership of the late Steve Jobs, Apple essentially reinvented itself for the mobile age, launching revolutionary gadgets such as the iPod, MacBook and iPad. It stands to reason that the world’s largest retailer happens to have one of the best-performing stocks over the long haul. JNJ is set to split off its consumer health business – the one that makes Tylenol, Listerine and Band Aid – from its pharmaceuticals and medical devices divisions. The breakup is meant to free the faster-growth, higher-margin parts of J&J from the drag of its more mature, less profitable operations. Berkshire is now a holding company comprising dozens of diverse businesses, selling everything from underwear to insurance policies .
XOM might not repeat as a top stock of the next 30 years, but it could still be a solid buy-and-hold pick if the dividend hikes keep coming. Although it has cooled off over the past few years, China’s economy experienced a kind of explosive expansion over the last three decades that has rarely been seen on the world historical stage. The Middle Kingdom’s e-commerce growth has been equally stunning. Advocates of buy-and-hold index investing have a fresh batch of powerful evidence supporting the wisdom of their ways, new research shows.
Bottom Line: The Best Performing Stock Can Still Help You Retire Rich
Thus the weighted alpha is a measure of one year growth with an emphasis on the most recent price activity. Adam Galas is a co-founder of Wide Moat Research («WMR»), a subscription-based publisher of financial information, serving over 5,000 investors around the world. WMR has a team of experienced multi-disciplined analysts covering all dividend categories, including REITs, MLPs, BDCs, and traditional C-Corps. Click here for a two-week free trial so we can help you achieve better long-term total returns and your financial dreams. Altria’s inflation-adjusted 145-year returns would be about a 30 million-fold increase in real wealth.
- It should come as no surprise that the greatest value investor of all time would be behind one of the best stocks of all time.
- And although NVDA was a longtime market beater over the next decade-plus – and by a wide margin at that – shares went truly ballistic only in the past few years.
- This lets you add additional filters to further narrow down the list of candidates.
Google’s owner, Alphabet, is one of the biggest companies that exists today, with a market cap of $1,05 trillion. Google has also added a vast number of different products to its business portfolio, for example, Android OS. Android OS is one of the most – if not the most popular – mobile operating system in the world. The company sells popular medications such as Revlimid and Thalomid. Through research and development (R&D) and acquisitions, the organisation has been building a large drug portfolio. They also receive royalties on some of their products, in addition to their sales revenue.
This list features another major player in the non-alcoholic beverage space, and it is none other than PepsiCo. The company has been able to dole out dividends that have been growing consistently for decades. While the sale of carbonated beverages has been under some pressure, PepsiCo has been expanding its product offerings. Some of the popular products offered by this brand are Lays chips, Gatorade energy drink, Aquafina water, and Tropicana fruit juice. The range of products PepsiCo provides is actually broader than that of the Coca-Cola company.
While the company does not distribute dividends, the return on equity is exceptionally high. The company is continuously evolving and venturing into new businesses like payment channels to bolster its growth. While data laws across countries have been highly regulated, the company has been able to gain the confidence of the lawmakers for the time being. Often a staple among top brands, Coca-Cola has been one of the most popular companies in the non-alcoholic beverage industry. While revenue has been on the decline due to an increase in competition from other brands, the company still boasts a high return on equity. In the past, the company has grown by managing to acquire smaller brands and marketing them to increase revenues.
The telecommunications giant began in 1963 as a small cable operator in Tupelo, Miss. However, new Comcast stock was issued in 2002 following the merger with AT&T Broadband, so the stunning lifetime returns calculated by Bessembinder were generated over just 14 years. Notably, it tickmill broker review bought NBCUniversal in 2011 and DreamWorks Animation in 2016, fueling Comcast’s strategy of becoming a producer of premier films and programming. Comcast’s stock is up 657% on a price basis since the bull market began in March 2009 compared with a gain of 312% for the S&P 500.
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Altria is the best performing stock in history, delivering life-changing wealth and safe income for nearly 100 years. It might surprise you to learn that plenty of investors have been making great money in Altria over the last few years, even during the current bear market. Quality companies have always practiced ESG risk management long before it was popular among investors.
Although 2017 returns aren’t included in Bessembinder’s study, the stock price nearly doubled last year — a remarkable one-year return for such an established blue-chip stock. Gilead Sciences made its name developing retroviral drugs to fight HIV, influenza and Hepatitis B and C, and now it’s making acquisitions in order to find more bestsellers. Founded three decades ago when the biotechnology sector was still in its infancy, Gilead — like many biotech stocks — has given investors a dramatic ride. Shares didn’t do much for the first decade or so after the company went public in 1992 until Gilead hit the mark with retroviral drugs, at which point the stock took off. Shares peaked in 2015 and have lost about a third of their value since.
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That’s partly because management has a knack for changing with the times. Shares performed poorly in the early 2000s, for example, around the time the low-carb Atkins diet surged in popularity. McDonald’s responded by adding more healthy fare what is envelope indicator to its menu and the stock recovered. Over the last three years, shares are up 90% vs. a gain of 40% for the S&P 500. History suggests it’s never wise to count out McDonald’s, a public company since 1965 and a Dow component since 1985.
Here’s a roundup of 5 of the stocks that have had the highest total return over the past 20 years. All are listed in the S&P 500, which is comprised of 505 of the biggest companies in the U.S. market. All of these stocks rose dramatically faster than the S&P 500, which had a 255% total return during the same period. If you’re looking for the stock market’s next big gainers, a quick history lesson could be helpful. Though successful industries tend to change over time, the characteristics of the most successful companies are often the same.
But as much wealth as the electric vehicle maker has created in its relatively short life, it has done so with gut-wrenching volatility. A component of the Dow since 1997, Walmart has increased its dividend every year since 1974, and those dividends have really added up. From 1990 through 2020, Walmart stock gained 2,470% on a price basis alone.
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Conoco, once owned by DuPont, was founded in 1875, and the Phillips story begins in 1917. ConocoPhillips spun off its transportation and refining business in 2012 as Phillips 66 to focus solely trailing stop ea on exploration, development and production. That’s what differentiates it today from major integrated energy companies such as ExxonMobil , which also transport and refine oil and natural gas.
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At 87 years old, Buffett has given no indication when he will retire. JPMorgan Chase traces its roots all the way back to 1799, when The Manhattan Company was chartered to supply clean water to New York City. Today’s JPMorgan Chase is a sprawling multinational financial powerhouse that ranks as the nation’s largest bank by assets. Morgan & Co., the stock was added to the Dow in 1991 to reflect not only its place of prominence in the financial industry but its prominence in the American business landscape. Texaco, originally known as The Texas Co., was a staple of the Dow Jones industrial average throughout most of the 20th century.
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Microsoft has been another reliable investment over the years because it continues to deliver exceptional revenues every quarter. Apple continues to deliver outstanding technological products that are used by millions of people every single day. Payouts have gone up for nearly 60 years, and the future remains bright for one of the most dominant non-alcoholic beverage brands in the world. The seven stocks in our list come from very different industries in the American economy. It’s also important to find the reasons why these particular stocks are among the best of all time. If you read articles about economics or trading, you will have likely come across the term “stock index”.