Market Performance Comparison of
Total Return % of a few Stocks and Funds

The standard market advice is "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Which is true, things can sometimes change fast (and is called "risk"), however results certainly do show possibilities. This calculator compares Morningstar's compounded Total Return % growth reports (which includes reinvested dividends and compounding) of up to 11 year spans of performance of over 120+ tickers (popular stocks and a few funds, on the US market). All these included companies are in the S&P 500 except for four exceptions (Super Micro Computers, Roku, Marvel and Shopify — all seemingly otherwise eligible, except the S&P 500 limits new members to only one public ticker class). Included here are the top 75 S&P 500 companies, and several others including all of the Dow Jones Index, and also a few mutual funds of mixed persuasion. The calculator provides time spans for comparing their results. Also shows the Annualized Return % (but which cannot include the incomplete current year).

For a description of a company, click on its Ticker in the chart, and then the Quotes tab at Morningstar has a brief description down lower on that page. See for more about the market in general.

You can very easily add a few of your own choices of stocks or funds on this page (added temporarily, until your next reload of the page) to see the performance comparisons. Option 6 makes it easy to Copy/Paste the Morningstar Total Return % data. Just drag the mouse across the numbers on that Morningstar data line (2013 to YTD) to highlight and Copy the Total Return % numbers, and then directly Paste into Option 6 (for each additional new ticker of interest). Also another page here has a calculator #3 that will compute the same Copy/Paste of the Morningstar Total Return % numbers. Morningstar shows the 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.

Most of the last 10 years have been generally good to very good market years for the S&P 500. However currently this is a time of political and economic problems, and 2022 was very 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 year end.

So far 2023 is a little different. We are not recovered yet. Gains of many good companies have sunk even more negative this year. But in stark contrast, several of the big growth stocks are an extreme reversal from 2022 (moving from bottom of the list to the top). It's worth seeing a sort on only 2023. But do realize the top growth stocks also have greater risk, so it's also worth seeing the one year sort of 2022. The politics and economy will be an issue until the next US federal election. But the market has always recovered, and the gains will look much better after recovery.

In this calculator,

• You can sort performance of all tickers in any one year, or in your selected span of years (within years 2013-2023). However Annualized Return can only include whole years, so will Not be computed if the incomplete current year is included in the Span of years.
• Option 4 can compare all years of all tickers to all years of any other one ticker in the chart.
• Option 5 shows Annualized Total Return of the Span for all tickers (except the incomplete year 2023 YTD).
• Option 6 can temporarily add your own ticker choices into the table for all comparisons.

The values in the large table are NOT the share prices in dollars. Instead All numbers are Total Return percentages (gain for the year or the year span). The 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 less results. If your brokerage's way to reinvest stock dividends is not found, then see this.

The Span is the compounded Total Return % for the selected year span (indicated with bold headers). There is 11 years of data. Showing the five early years 2013-2017 will need a screen wider than many cell phones, but they need not be shown to include them in a Span.

The S&P 500 Index is represented by the Vanguard VFIAX fund (with fund fee of 0.04%). The Names in Bold are the ten largest companies in the S&P 500 (and a S&P 500 Index fund). Tickers with an gray background are mutual funds. Fund names starting with a V are Vanguard funds (3 of which are Balanced Funds, indicating the percentage in bonds).

Five of these tickers are newer with no data before their ticker existed. Those early empty cells are ignored, without effect. If the last two columns (Gain and Annualized) have a light orange color, it indicates some of the first span years (like 2013) have blank data. Accurate Gain numbers are computed for the existing years, but the light orange color result is a WARNING that it is NOT directly comparable to the others due to the different years of time periods.

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 a Fixed Rate from the SAME compounded gain and time, the same result, but AS IF IT HAD BEEN A FIXED ANNUAL RATE, the same rate every year. The market didn't happen that way, but it is still exactly the same gain and time result, and is a valid logical and consistent way to compare the actual variable long term market performance. Annualized rate is more 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 any current year). Including incomplete years cannot be correct because the future is not known. To see Annualized Return here, remove 2023 from the year span. Or see Option 5 with a multiple year span. Annualized Return is also not shown for a span of only one year, because it would be the same number as Gain. The current year does show its current YTD Gain, but the future gain of the current year is not known, and will change every new market day. The Annualized sort ORDER is in the Same ORDER (Not the same Value, but same ORDER) as the Gain column if no blank data years are included in the span (if no orange cells, but the orange cells will not be in exact Annualized order (because the gain column is sorted). The significance of the orange cells is that they are not directly comparable to the others. The significance of the Annualized numbers is for the span of several whole years. (See a detailed description of Annualized Return.)