W.I.T. #49 - Top Performing Stocks of the Last 20 Years
Two stocks have absolutely killed the competition over the past two decades. Apple is one; you'll never guess the other!
Three Things Worth Sharing
Buffett on the distorting power of fame – “I was at my best at giving financial advice when I was twenty-one years old and people weren’t listening to me. I could have gotten up there and said the most brilliant things and not very much attention would have been paid to me. And now can say the dumbest things in the world and a fair number of people will think there’s some great hidden meaning to it or something.”
– Warren Buffett
Be my Valentine? – I came across this article highlighting the top 100 romantic restaurants in the U.S. and was excited to see where I should take Alison out for dinner until I read it in full. How is it that North Dakota & New Hampshire each make the list but Wisconsin and Iowa both get shut out?
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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
John Scherer:
Which two stocks have absolutely crushed the competition over the last 20 years? That's what I'm thinking about.
I was reading an article and came across a chart that had the top 20 performing stocks over the past 5,10,15, 20 years. And I was really surprised, I mean, that there were two over the last 20 years that just killed everybody else. And I'm talking, you know, double, triple, quadruple, the next closest competition, right?
And I'll tell you, I'll give you a spoiler. There are two big names. Two names you'd absolutely know. One of them is Apple. Right. Not a big surprise there. But can you think of what the other one is, the other dominant stock of the past two decades? No cheating and looking on Google here. Here, let me pull up the chart. And you can see in the number two slot is Monster Energy drinks. That's right. We all know their name, right? Maybe some of us even drink their beverages. But that's not who I thought of anyway, when I thought of who are the high flyers and the people that are driving the big winners over the last 20 years.
And it's just interesting as you think about those things and look at the difference between those two stocks and the other ones. I mean, they're head and shoulders above the others, right, as far as performance goes. And not exactly what I would have thought about back in 2004 when Monster Energy drink was much younger than it is today, right?
And I'll pull up the bigger chart here that's got all four of those time frames and just take a few minutes to take a look through this. I think this is super interesting, both in the companies that you'd expect to see there in those charts that aren't. John: Right. John: We do see Apple in there, but not at the top and not all the way. Right. We see Netflix and Microsoft is in there too. Right. But not all of those high flying tech stocks. I don't see the Google and the meta in there, right? Interesting. Last five years, you see a couple of pharmaceutical companies. Not surprising with COVID Right? But interesting, the ones that you see in there, like, oh, where is this one? And where is that one? And even more interesting maybe for me, are the names that are in there that I would have not expected, like monster energy drink to be some of the top performing stocks over time. John: Look at that 20 year. We got Sherman Williams in there, O'Reilly auto parts. John: Right. John: That is not what I mean, not expected. Old dominion freight line shows up a number of different places in here. John: Right. John: And you think about, look at the 15 year number. Domino's pizza. John: Right? John: These consumer staples. My eye just glanced over to Sintos Corporation, the ten year number, right? Commercial uniforms, those sorts of things. Not the things that I would have thought of as those high flyers. And what does that mean? How is that useful is when we think about, oh, we know what's going to happen. Or even we look back and we assume that it would have been all those high flying tech stocks and things and you've got the dominoes and you've got the old dominion and you've got the O'Reilly auto parts in there. John: Right? John: It's not always what it appears to be and it's super hard to pick those things out. John: Right. John: Which is why we have to diversify, spread our investments out and buy really huge numbers of stocks through our mutual funds and etfs in order to get these sorts of returns. So that's what I'm thinking about. I'm interested, as you look at this, what comes to mind for you and what you're thinking thinking about. So jot a comment in the comment box if you're watching this on YouTube or shoot me an email directly. And as always, thanks for watching.
John Scherer CFP® is a fee-only financial planner based in Middleton, Wisconsin. He has over 20 years of experience advising clients on personal tax, investment, and financial planning.