The Best-Performing Stock on the S&P 500 Since 1980 | The Motley Fool (2024)

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Stock market returns since 1980

This is a return on investment of 13,619.04%, or 11.74% per year. This lump-sum investment beats inflation during this period for an inflation-adjusted return of about 3,505.34% cumulatively, or 8.42% per year.

The historical average yearly return of the S&P 500 is 9.88% over the last 20 years, as of the end of April 2024. This assumes dividends are reinvested. Adjusted for inflation, the 20-year average stock market return (including dividends) is 7.13%.

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In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.

S&P 500: $100 in 1990 → $2,953.46 in 2024

This lump-sum investment beats inflation during this period for an inflation-adjusted return of about 1,131.13% cumulatively, or 7.59% per year. If you used dollar-cost averaging (monthly) instead of a lump-sum investment, you'd have $2,745.61.

Looking at the S&P 500 for the years 1993 to mid-2023, the average stock market return for the last 30 years is 9.90% (7.22% when adjusted for inflation). Some of this success can be attributed to the dot-com boom in the late 1990s (before the bust), which resulted in high return rates for five consecutive years.

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The best-performing stock of the past three decades is not one of the tech titans you'd assume. It's actually an energy drink company: Monster Beverage . Monster's stock has climbed for decades, along with sales, which have grown consistently for 31 years straight.

1. Nvidia (NVDA) Nvidia is one of the best performing stocks of all-time and has richly rewarded shareholders over the past decade. Nvidia initially rose to prominence for its chips used for video-game graphics, but its business has boomed recently thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence.

Our list for 2024 includes a diversified mix of familiar stocks and some surprises, once again leaning toward, but not exclusively to, the value camp: Alibaba Group Holding, Alphabet, Barrick Gold, Berkshire Hathaway, BioNTech, Chevron, Hertz Global Holdings, Madison Square Garden Sports, PepsiCo, and U-Haul Holding.

The aggregated results are distilled into a single score, a simple rating on a scale of 1 to 10, letting investors know at a glance the likely course forward of any given share. A 'Perfect 10' is a clear indicator that a stock deserves a closer look, based on the data.