We are almost at the end of the second decade of the century (time flies, I know). So I decided it is a good time to check the 21 best-performing stocks of the 21st century.
If you are not sure about a certain word you can go and check out my Metrics page for explanation.
My criterias for this research are two :
1. The stock needs to be listed on the S&P500
– I am doing this, because there is the best and most accurate data out there for the companies, listed on the S&P500. Also being on the S&P 500 makes the company big enough to be evaluated properly.
2. The stock needs to be publicly traded for at least 10 years
– I am doing this, because 10 years is the minimum amount of time for me to provide any significance to a statistic. Less time than that might skew the performance and is not significant enough to give any proper evaluation.
Before we start there are a couple of things you need to know. First past performance does not guarantee future success. Just because those are the best stocks for the last 20 years doesn’t mean they are going to be for the next 20.
Also the stocks are calculated as a total return with dividends reinvested. They are ordered by average annual returns.
I made this research for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. Please do your own due dilligence depending on your personal goals.
All that being said it is definetely interesting to see who are the winners so far, so let’s get into it.
21. Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)
Average Annual Return : 23,67%
Sector : Consumer Discretionary (Restaurants)
Probably a big part of you know Chipotle. They are a restaurant chain, serving mexican food. They gained a huge amount of popularity during the 21st century by providing their customers with fresh food at fair prices.
Currently they operate in five countries – the US, the UK, Germany, Canada and France. At the moment they have a little over 73,000 employees.
20. Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)
Average Annual Return : 23,75%
Sector : Information Technology (Interactive Media & Services)
For those of you that don’t know Alphabet is the parent company of Google. Apart from Google they have hundreds of other ventures and are in almost every person’s life today.
They have a huge portfolio of online services such as Youtube, Google Search, Gmail, Android, Waymo and many, many more.
They have been hugely successful in the 21st century thanks to their excellent understanding of the internet and being able to utilise it to their best extent.
Alphabet operates in pretty much every country around the world and have about 100,000 employees.
19. A.O.Smith Corp (AOS)
Average Annual Return : 24,62%
Sector : Industrials (Building Products)
A O Smith is a company, mainly involved with the production of water heaters, boilers and other water treatment products in North America and around the world. The company is created more than 100 years ago and are currently the largest manufacturer of water heaters in North America.
Currently they have 24 locations worldwide and over 16,000 employees.
18. Rollins Inc. (ROL)
Average Annual Return : 24,78%
Sector : Enviromental & Facilities Servicies
For those of you that don’t know about them Rollins is one of the biggest pest-control companies around the world. They own different subsidies in their impressive portfolio such as Safeguard, Allpest and many more.
They operate in many different countries in North and South America, the Middle East, Asia and Asia. They have been found in 1948 and currently have more than 13,000 employees worldwide.
17. ANSYS (ANSS)
Average Annual Return : 25,11%
Sector : Information Technology (Application Software)
Ansys is a computre software company that develops and markets engineering simulation software. Their software is used to design products and semiconductors, as well as to create different simulations to test various aspects of the products.
Ansys is headquartered in Pennsylvania and currently employ about 3000 people.
16. Ball Corp (BLL)
Average Annual Return : 25,35%
Sector : Materials (Metal & Glass Containers)
The company has been founded as way back as 1880 and is mostly well-known for the production of metal containers, jars, cans and other food containers. They have also expanded into the aerospace sector, producing different sensors and systems for aircrafts.
The company currently employs over 18,000 people and is operating in three different continents.
15. MarketAxess (MKTX)
Average Annual Return : 25,42%
Sector : Financials (Financial Exchanges & Data)
MarketAxess is an international financial technology company, operatic a trading platform credit makers. It enables big institutional investors and broker-dealers to trade different instruments such as bonds and other fixed-income products.
As of today they are the market leader in the electronic trading of US corporate bonds with around 85% of investment-grade bonds being traded on their platform.
They employ about 450 people, which is an impressively small number for a company worth more than $13bln.
14. Carmax Inc (KMX)
Average Annual Return : 25,47%
Sector : Consumer Discretionary (Specialty Stores)
CarMax is the largest used-car retailer in the United States, operating nearly 200 locations.
The company has about 25,000 employees and is currently operating solely in the United States.
13. Apple (AAPL)
Average Annual Return : 25,49%
Sector : Information Technology (Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals)
Probably most of you know, or have at least heard of Apple. They are the first trillion dollar company in the world and the second biggest one at the moment.
They are the most well-known for the Iphone and other products such as the Ipad, Mac computer and others.
As of today they have more than 500 retail stores worldwide and more than 130,000 employees.
12. Intuitive Surgical Inc. (ISRG)
Average Annual Return : 25,66%
Sector : Health Care (Health Care Equipment)
Intuitive Surgical is a company that develops and manufactures robotic producs for surgical purposes, most well-known with the Da Vinci Surgical System.
At the moment they employ more than 4,400 people and operate across most of the continents around the world.
11. CF Industries Holdings Inc. (CF)
Average Annual Return : 25,71%
Sector : Materials (Fertilizers & Agricultural Chemicals)
CF Industries is a North-American producer and distributor of fertilizers.
The company operates in North America and has about 3,000 employees.
10. Visa (V)
Average Annual Return : 26,44%
Sector : Information Technology (IT Services)
Probably many of you know and use Visa or have used at some point in your life. They are the biggest player in electronic transfers in the world through their debit and credit cards.
Their success comes from the cashless movement in the 21st century and the fact that more and more transactions are made electronically.
Visa operates in almost every country around the world and has about 17,000 employees.
9. Salesforce (CRM)
Average Annual Return : 27,4%
Sector : Information Technology (Internet Software & Services)
Salesforce are one of the leaders in the newish industry known as SaaS (software as a service). They provide different software services such as customer-relationship management (CRM), analytics, application development and different cloud-based services.
As of today they operate in almost every country around the world and have about 35,000 employees.
8. Tractor Supply Company (TSCO)
Average Annual Return : 27,52%
Sector : Consumer Discretionary (Specialty Stores)
Tractor Supply Company is an american retailer that sales different agricultural, home improvement, garden maintance and other products.
They have more than 1,700 locations all around the US and employ about 29,000 people.
7. Ross Stores (ROST)
Average Annual Return : 27,99%
Sector : Consumer Discretionary (Apparel Retail)
Ross Stores operates a chain of discount department stores across America. They are found in 1950 and have been expanding ever since.
Today they have more than 1,000 stores across the US and employ about 90,000 people.
6. CME Group Inc. (CME)
Average Annual Return : 28,83%
Sector : Financials (Financial Exchanges & Data)
CME Group owns and operates various stock market exchanges in the United States. This is the company that stays at the back end of a lot of stocks, options and other trades happening in the markets.
It was founded way back in 1841 and employs about 3,000 people.
5. Transdigm Group (TDG)
Average Annual Return : 33,06%
Sector : Industrials (Aerospace & Defence)
Transdigm Group is a manufactrurer of different parts for commercial and defence aircraft and everything around the aerospace industry. They produce things such as ignition systems, engine technologies and many more.
They operate in many countries around the world and employ more than 22,000 people as of today.
4. Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)
Average Annual Return : 34,58%
Sector : Information Technology (Semiconductors)
Broadcom is one of the biggest semiconductor producers in the world, making a large array of technological components. They are founded in 1961 as the semiconductor division of Hewlett-Packard (HP).
Today you can find their parts in different products all over the world and they have about 15,000 employees.
3. Netflix (NFLX)
Average Annual Return : 37,76%
Sector : Information Technology (Movies & Entertainment)
Probably most of you know Netflix, it is one of the biggest streaming providers in the world. Their growth has been exponential in the last decade because of the change of the way people consume content. People watch most of the things online now and Netflix capitalised on that.
As of today they have over 150mln. users worldwide and employ more than 5,000 people.
2. Monster Energy (MNST)
Average Annual Return : 39,82%
Sector : Consumer Staples (Soft Drinks)
This is the company staying behind the popular energy drink that you can find in stores everywhere around the world. Their exponential growth has been driven by very smart marketing campaigns. They are big sponsors of different sporting events around the world.
As of today the company sells it’s products all over the world and have about 3,000 employees.
1. Mastercard (MA)
Average Annual Return : 40,36%
Sector : Information Technology (IT Services)
The winner as the best performing stock of the 21st century goes to Mastercard, with their increduble average annual return of more than 40%!
As for the company they are one of the two dominating digital transaction proccessors, together with Visa. Similar to Visa, Mastercard capitalised on the switch of people paying from cash to digital.
As of today Mastercard operates in most of the countries around the world and has a little less than 15,000 employees worldwide.
Honorable Mentions :
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ)
Average Annual Return : 26,44%
Sector : Consumer Discretionary (Restaurants)
A very strong performance by Domino’s with their 26,44% annual growth rate for the century. The only thing that stops them from being in the list is that they are not part of the S&P 500 (yet). Still that doesn’t make their achievment any less significant.
As for the company Domino’s is a fast food pizza chain that operates all over the world with great success. They capitalised on people eating more takeaway food and they are one of the leaders in the space.
As of today they operate worldwide and have about 15,000 employees or 300,000 counting all the franchisees.
Arista Networks (ANET)
Average Annual Return : 31.66%
Sector : Information Technology (Communications Equipment)
Another very strong performace, by Arista Networks. It didn’t make the cut into our list, because they have not been a publicly-traded company for that long. Their IPO was in 2014, not that long ago. Still no one can deny their incredible performance since then, the only thing missing is a bit more track record to be on the list.
As for the company they are a global producers of internet modem switches and different network solutions.
As of today the company operates in many countries around the world and has about 2,500 employees.
So, this is the list of the best-performing stocks for the century so far. Thank you all for reading, hope it was interesting for you. Don’t forget to subscribe if you would like to stay updated on new articles.
