Wondering about better stock picks with more earnings? Here's a view you may never have seen. It compares performance of market Total Return % of about 150 Stocks and about 20 Funds. You can sort many ticker performances in any one year, or in spans to up to the past ten years of history. You can also easily add other tickers of your choice.
Caution:
This page is Not investing advice. It's only a comparison of published past and current performance of a few stocks and funds. I am NOT a registered investment advisor and readers should do their own due diligence before investing in any stock. I am not responsible for your investment decisions.
The standard market advice is always "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Things happen, and can sometimes suddenly change (and is called "market risk"). In particular, you need to realize that there can be greater risk in the high flier hot stocks, which may rise more, but they will also go down more. They are especially volatile, which can possibly shift overnight to be hot today and a big loss tomorrow. Most funds do not consider including the hottest stocks for that reason.
In bad times affecting most stocks, even the best growth stocks will go down considerably more than the more mediocre stocks. It can be a gamble long term, but good stocks eventually recover. The market of course goes up and down every day, and another risk (at least short term) is buying after it is at peak price. Selling because it falls low just locks in the permanent loss. But if it's a good stock or fund, it should recover, market lows have always recovered. Yes, the low dips down will be very uncomfortable, but they are often considered the best buying opportunities (called "buying the dip"). Remember that every stock sell has a buyer seeking future gain. Knowing the company's situation and actual possibilities are important to consider. Companies all have different stock prices (meaning numerical prices are not comparable), so much more important is the gain percentage of profitable earnings, which is what this page shows, and which also includes any dividends paid. However dividends are simply withdrawals that reduce your investment (are definitely NOT new free income), so reinvesting all dividends is strongly recommended to create additional free shares which restore your previous investment value, and keeps on earning.
There is an old quote from the Bible: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", now meaning to use diversification. In the market, diversification means investing in several good companies in different mixed industries is important, so that one company's troubles will less affect the whole thing. See more about the market in general.
No company is responsible for a market bad time affecting all companies (which is often caused by political actions). I am a believer that actual gain results do show realistic possibilities, but greed has also cost me big several times on the choices of individual hot stocks. There can be some bad economic times when all stocks are well down for awhile, but overall the market itself has many more good years than bad.
This calculator (below) compares Morningstar's calendar years of Total Return % gain results (which includes reinvested dividends and compounded price gains) of current YTD and up to 10 year spans of performance of over 160+ tickers (popular stocks and a few funds, in the US market). It's the record of what has actually happened in the market (see the Morningstar Total Return definitions). Total Return % does NOT include accounting for any taxes due. The calculator provides time spans for comparing their actual results, including the current year YTD. Also shows the Annualized Return % for the selected time spans (but annualized cannot include the current incomplete YTD).
Included here are almost all of the top 100 S&P 500 companies, and a few other interesting ones, which includes all of the Dow Jones Industrial Index 30, and also a few funds of mixed persuasion.
Note that every stock or fund annual total gain restarts at 0% at the New Year, and builds to the Year End.
In this calculator,
- You can sort and compare performance in any one year of all these tickers, or in your selected span of years within 2015-2025. 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 span, which is same as the gain then).
- Options 1, 2 and 3 are just the colors for all the table data cells. Option 2 represents actual annual gains. Option 3 colors highlight extreme values exceeding the specified limits, leaving the lesser values uncolored. Meaning that 3 with ± limits of +0 and -0 (no exclusion, all cells are colored) which is then the same colors as option 2.
- Option 4 can compare all years of all tickers to the years of any other one ticker in the chart. The Delta Δ symbol is a math symbol used to mean "difference".
- Option 5 shows the Summary and Annualized Total Return of the Span for each ticker, compounded for multiple years (except again, Annualized return must exclude the incomplete year 2025 YTD). If the span is for only one single complete year, Annualized is then just the same as the gain, so is not shown again.
- Option 6 makes it very easy to add a few tickers of your own choice of stocks or funds to the chart on this page (retained until the page is reloaded) 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 (2015 to 2025 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 for more tickers as desired. Copy all years, and any blank years (shown with a dash) can be copied or not, but the safest thing is copy them and let the program remove them. The last year in the string added will be placed as being 2025. Also another page here has a calculator #3 that will compute the same Copy/Paste of the Morningstar Total Return % numbers (compounded then). On screens wide enough, 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 screen limitations: The ticker links below go to their correct Morningstar pages (the source of this data). However the year end Total Return % feature (showing 11 years, 2015-2025 YTD) is pretty wide, but is apparently too wide to show at Morningstar on my narrow iPhone screens. That header is shown below their graph there, but not the wide data. It disappears if the browser window is too small. But Morningstar also has a Trailing Returns tab that does show the past 1, 5, 10, 15 years return from current date (which is Not the year end data that this program assumes).
A Browser Quirk: This is about a warning that I see in Chrome when clicking an exit link here. This warning says your data may not be saved if you leave. This page does offer many links to Morningstar for these tickers and the data source. It's a browser issue and is NOT Morningstar's fault. You'll see the same warning on other sites offering links away from data entered in a form.
The situation is if clicking an exit link on this page (or others that will show the same warning Reload or Cancel?) which then when returning shows the beginning initial page again (instead of the previous last page), but it does not reload the page to reset your changed options, so does not show the result those options should show, which causes a very confusing mismatch between the data shown and the previous options shown. That is done in the browser, not by this program which does not know if you selected Reload or Cancel, so it cannot know to reset.. However there are exceptions and my iPhones and also now Firefox 127 appear to recover OK and instead correctly just reshow the previous page.
If you see this problem, there is a way to work around it:
At return, you can click this page's Click Here button (or any other option button that causes a refreshed view), and it redraws the view to restore the selected options. That part is simple, except this reload will NOT retain any added tickers.
Or to exit but still also retain any added tickers, exit with a Right Click on the exit link and choose either a New Tab or a New Window, which preserves this page's tab. It won't ask Reload or Cancel then. That does not open the new tab until you click it. Or you can instead just click on another existing tab. You can return here by clicking THIS tab which remains unaffected, until a reload of it.
Otherwise, you can select Cancel to instead stay here, then nothing changes.
The values in these tables are NOT the share prices in dollars. Instead All numbers are Total Return % (percent gain for the years and the compounded year span). The Gain is then comparable with the others.
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. Not reinvesting dividends is very costly long term, with much less long term compounding (See more. See the compounding math.) If you don't find your brokerage's way to specify reinvesting stock dividends, then see this (ETF may be excluded from reinvesting dividends, because ETF trades in shares, not dollars).
Morningstar shows Total Return % in two ways. The individual year end results (2021, 2022, 2023, etc) used here are the Total Return of each year as of each year end (from 12/31 to 12/31) so the current year is as yet incomplete). But the Morningstar Trailing Returns of the 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 year periods are the Annualized Returns of the span duration, but of years back from the current date, instead of from year end values. Both are 12 month results, but the one year date difference will not be the exact same value as the year end YTD values shown here. However the YTD value shown is correct for the current year so far.
The Span is the compounded Total Return % for the selected year span (span years indicated with yellow headers). There is 11 years of data. Showing the five early years 2015-2019 will need a screen wider than many cell phones, but they need not be shown to include them in a Span.
The Span calculations do not change if clicking to sort on Ticker or Name columns.
The Header color legend:
Not in Span Columns Not included in current Span.
Span The Span years currently selected create the compounded result.
Sort The Sorted column (brighter).
The Ticker column color legend:
S&P 500 Tickers are companies in the S&P 500 Index (Almost all of the top 100). The Bold company names are the S&P 500 Top 10 and the S&P 500 Index. The S&P 500 Index is represented by the Vanguard VFIAX fund (with fund fee of 0.04%, but Total Return does not account for fund fee). There are many S&P 500 Index funds, all trying to mimic the performance of the index, so their results are pretty much near the same, except for the varying fund fees. If interested in one of these funds, I suggest avoiding those with higher fees. The fee may seem a tiny number, but compounded long term (20 or 30 years) becomes a large number lost each year.
Not S&P 500 Tickers are Companies NOT in the S&P 500.
Funds Tickers are funds consisting of many companies. Fund names starting with a "V " are Vanguard funds and those with "Amer." are American Century funds. Mutual fund tickers end with "X", but some ETF and company tickers also end with X, but Not with same meaning.
ETF ETF funds. ETF trade as whole shares during market hours (like stocks). But mutual funds trade as dollars, only after the next market close (typically including fractional shares). Any dividend reinvestment or IRA RMD are in dollars, possibly making ETF fractions difficult for brokerages.
Option 6 Tickers were added by Option 6.
The Data color legend:
Options 2 and 4 colors represent gains of ± 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50% with shades of red and green.
Option 3 highlights extremes by showing the color only if gain exceeds the specified limits.
Warning A warning in the Compounded data columns at far right. That ticker has no data before its ticker existed. Those early empty cells are ignored, with no effect on the computing. Except the last two columns (Span Gain and Annualized) have an orange background WARNING meaning it is NOT comparable to the ranking of the others due to the fewer years in its time period. The numbers are accurate for the existing years, and the overall gains are in sorted order and accurate for the shorter span, but their Annualized values will not be in sorted order.
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 some years may be negative. Those results are compounded by the following years.
AN AVERAGE GAIN CANNOT INCLUDE COMPOUNDING, SO IS NOT VERY USEFUL. So the actual real market gain performance over several years is not so obvious. We can see the overall dollar gain that was achieved, which is good to know, but of course that depends on the number of years, and which years. The Annualized Gain is the number to compare.
To know an annualized rate of gain that can be compared meaningfully, 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 didn't happen that way, but we can understand that result. Annualized is still exactly the same gain dollars in the same time result, and is the valid logical and consistent way to compare the variable long term market performance of years of various gains. Annualized rate is comprehensibly comparable to other stocks if for 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 it would compute a future that is not known. To see Annualized Return for your selected span here, remove 2025 from the year span. Or see Option 5 with a multiple year span (it isolates 2025). Annualized Return for a span of one year is the same number as the one year Gain, but is shown anyway. The current year does show its current YTD Gain, however the future gain of the incomplete current year is not known, and will change a little every market day, Any Annualized gain of any span including the current year cannot be shown.
If the span includes blank early years, the Gain column is sorted correctly, and the Annualized sort ORDER is in the Same ORDER (Not the same Value, but same sort ORDER) following the Gain column, with a orange warning on these cells indicates its result is 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 fewer actual whole years. (See a detailed description of Annualized Return.)
The future is looking bright after the election.
Other market pages and calculators:
S&P 500 50 year gain history calculator, concerned with Withdrawal Depletion
Performance comparison of 170+ stocks and funds
Descriptions of S&P 500, the 4% Rule, Basics of Markets and Dividends
Math of Compounding and Annualized Return, and calculators
S&P 500 daily Action, and Count of annual S&P 500 Record Highs
Dividends are in fact a forced withdrawal which reduces your investment's price, value and future gains. But you can put it back by Reinvesting Dividends, which restores the previous investment value, and the dividend becomes Free additional new shares, greatly increasing long term gain compounding. Either way, there is no new income on that first dividend day. You will owe tax on the gains in that withdrawal either way.
A few important market facts to know about Bonds
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