Compare Market Performance
of a few Stocks and Funds

Wondering about other stock choices with better earnings? Here are the directly comparable current results for many of them. You can sort performance for any one year, or spans to up to ten years of history. You can also add other tickers of your choice.

The page is Not advice, it's only a comparison of the past and current performance of these stocks. The standard market advice is "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Things can sometimes change fast (and is called "market risk"). But still, actual results certainly do show realistic possibilities. But also check year 2022, which was severe, especially to growth stocks, but if your interest is long term, also notice that the market eventually recovers afterward. If new to the market, see more about the market in general.

This calculator (below) compares Morningstar's annual calendar year Total Return % gain reports (which includes compounded price gains and reinvested dividends) of up to 11 year spans of performance of over 130+ tickers (popular stocks and a few more funds, on the US market). It's a good record of what has actually happened in the market (see the Morningstar Total Return definitions). The calculator provides time spans for comparing their actual results, including the current year YTD. Also shows the Annualized Return % for various time spans (but annualized cannot include the incomplete current year).

Included here are most of the top 100 S&P 500 companies, and several others, and all of the Dow Jones Industrial 30 Index, and also a few mutual funds of mixed persuasion.

In this calculator,

• You can sort and compare performance of all these tickers in any one year, or in your selected span of years (within years 2014-2024). However Annualized Return can only include whole years, so Annualized cannot be computed if the incomplete current year is included (and is also not shown for any one complete single year, which is same as the gain then).
• Options 1 to 3 are just table cell colors for the various sorts. Option 3 shows colors to highlight values exceeding the specified limits (meaning 3 with limits of ± 0 is the same as option 2.)
• Option 4 can compare all years of all tickers to the years of any other ticker in the chart. The Delta Δ is a math symbol for difference.
• Option 5 shows Annualized Total Return of the Span for all tickers (except again, excluding the incomplete year 2024 YTD, and not for any one single year span, which is then just the same as the gain).
• Option 6 can very easily add a few tickers of your own choice of stocks or funds to the chart on this page (retained until you reload the page) to see the performance comparisons. Option 6 provides easy Copy/Paste of the Morningstar Total Return % data. Just drag the mouse across the numbers on that Morningstar data line (2014 to 2024 YTD) to highlight and then Copy the Total Return % numbers, and then directly Paste into Option 6 (for each additional new ticker of interest, and repeat as desired). The last year added will be placed as 2024. Also another page here has a calculator #3 that will compute the same Copy/Paste of the Morningstar Total Return % numbers. Morningstar does not show these calendar year annual return % numbers on my iPhones, but on wider screens, Morningstar shows these past ten years (plus the current YTD) of these annual Total Return numbers (which for stocks are at the Price vs Fair Value tab, or for funds are at the Performance tab). The description of Morningstar Total Return % includes price gains, reinvested dividends and compounding.

Cell phone limitations:   The ticker links below go to their correct Morningstar pages (that show this same data), however the year end Total Return % feature (showing 11 years, 2014-YTD) is pretty wide, and is Not shown at Morningstar on my iPhone screens. That header is shown, but not the data. You may need a wider screen device to see their ten years of annual returns. But also their Trailing Returns feature shows the past 1, 5, 10, 15 years return from current date (is Not year end data).

The values in this table are NOT the share prices in dollars. Instead All numbers are Total Return (percent gain for the years and year span). The data years are the ticker's Morningstar Total Return percentage at each year, which includes both price gain and any dividends reinvested in that period. See the compounding math. If you are not reinvesting dividends, there will be much less long term gain (See more). If you don't find your brokerage's way to specify reinvesting stock dividends, then see this (ETF may be excluded).

The Span is the compounded Total Return % for the selected year span (span years indicated with bold headers). There is 11 years of data. Showing the five early years 2014-2018 will need a screen wider than many cell phones, but they need not be shown to include them in a Span.

 White  tickers are companies in the S&P 500 (most are in the top 100).

 Blue  tickers are companies NOT in the S&P 500 (but performance is or has been near the top).

 Gray  tickers are funds of many companies.

 Yellow  tickers were added by Option 6.

A few of these tickers are newer with no data before their ticker existed. Those early empty cells are ignored, without effect. Except if the last two columns (Gain and Annualized) have an orange background, it indicates some of the first span years have blank data. Accurate numbers are computed for the existing years, but the  orange background result is a WARNING  that it is NOT directly comparable to the others due to the fewer years in the time period. The overall gains are in sorted order, and their Annualized value likely appear to be out of order, but the number is correct for the shorter span. A span beginning at 2014 will indicate these shorter periods.

The S&P 500 Index is represented by the Vanguard VFIAX fund (with fund fee of 0.04%). There are many S&P 500 Index funds, all trying to mimic the performance of the index, so their results are pretty much the same except for the varying fund fee costs. If interested in one of these, I suggest you find one with lower fees. Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab are good starting places.

The Company Names in Bold are the ten largest companies in the S&P 500 (and this S&P 500 Index fund). Fund names starting with a V are Vanguard funds (3 of which are Balanced Funds, indicating the percentage in bonds).

Annualized Return (Gain) is the meaningful way to compare long term stock performance numbers. It's useful and important because stock years have varied performance, some years are up big, some years less, or even some years may be negative, and then those results are compounded by the following years. The actual market gain performance over several years is not so obvious. We can see the overall gain that was achieved, which is good to know, but that is the compounded gain, which largely depends on the number of years. To know an annualized rate of gain that can be compared, Annualized Return computes the Fixed Rate that would give the SAME compounded gain in the same time, the exact same result, but AS IF IT HAD BEEN THAT FIXED ANNUAL RATE every year. The market doesn't happen that way, but Annualized is still exactly the same gain and time result, and is the valid logical and consistent way to compare the variable long term market performance. Annualized rate is comprehensibly comparable to other stocks in the same time frame.

Annualized Return is only meaningful for Whole years, so MUST NOT be computed if the data span includes an incomplete year (like the current year). Including incomplete years cannot be correct because the future is not known. To see Annualized Return here, remove 2024 from the year span. Or see Option 5 with a multiple year span. Annualized Return is also not shown for a span of one year, because it would be the same number as Annualized Gain. The current year does show its current YTD Gain, however the future gain of the current year is not known, and will change a little every market day. The Gain column is sorted right, and the Annualized sort ORDER is in the Same ORDER (Not the same Value, but same sort ORDER) as the Gain column IF no blank data years are included in the span (but the orange cells will not be in exact Annualized order if it is results of different time periods (if missing early years). The significance of the orange cell warnings is that they are not directly comparable to the others then. The significance of the Annualized numbers is for the span of several whole years. (See a detailed description of Annualized Return.)

Most of the last 10 years have been generally good to very good market years for the S&P 500. However this is currently a time of extreme political and economic problems, and 2022 was seriously negative, especially for growth stocks and funds. The S&P 500 was down -25% at the bottom on 12 October 2022 and then -18% at year end. Many of the major growth stocks were still down 50% to 80% at 2022 year end.

2023 was a little different. Gains of many good companies have sunk even more negative this year so far. But in stark contrast, several of the big growth stocks are an extreme reversal from 2022 (moving from bottom of the list in 2022 to the top in 2023). It's worth seeing a sort on only 2023. Do realize the top growth stocks are volatile with greater risk, so it's also worth seeing the one year sort of 2022. The politics and economy will be an issue for the market until the next US federal election in November. But the market has always recovered, and the results will look much better after recovery. 2024 is only a few weeks duration, but seems a bit better so far, however a third of these are now even more negative gain than in 2023.