Comparison tool for market performance of
Total Returns of a few Stocks and Funds

The standard obligatory 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 100+ tickers (popular stocks and a few funds, on the US market). All these included companies are in the S&P 500 except for four (Super Micro Computers, Roku, Marvel and Shopify — because the S&P 500 limits new members to only one public ticker class). Included here are the top 60+ S&P 500 companies, and all of the Dow-Jones 30, and several others, and also several mutual funds of mixed persuasion. The calculator provides a few time spans for comparing their results. Also shows the Annualized Return % (but which cannot include the incomplete current year 2023).

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. For more about the market in general, see this page.

You can also very easily add a few of your own favorite choices of stocks or funds to this mix (added temporarily, until the 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 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). Morningstar Total Return % includes compounding and reinvested dividends, but Not fund fees.

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 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 -18% at year end. Many of the major growth stocks were still down 50% or more at year end.

So far 2023 is rather different. We are not recovered yet, many good companies are still sinking 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 have greater risk, so it's also worth seeing the one year sort of 2022. The S&P 500 is currently down near 10% (from the last record high nearly two years ago). The politics and economy will be an issue until the next US federal election, but it still is looking better than last year. The market has always recovered, and the gain will look much better after full 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.

Table values are NOT share prices. 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. If not reinvesting dividends, there will be less results. If your brokerage's choice to reinvestment 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 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 (they make the table about 850 pixels wide). See compounding math.

The S&P 500 Index is represented by the Vanguard VFIAX fund (with fund fee of 0.04%). Most of the companies here are in the top 100 of the S&P 500 (and the top 65+ are included), and 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 the tickers here are newer, there is no data before that ticker existed. Any early empty cells (before their public stock existed) are ignored, without effect (and are NOT counted as zero gain). So 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. It does compute accurate Gain numbers 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 and 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 possible for Whole years, and 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 unknown. To see Annualized Return here, remove 2023 from the year span. Or see Option 5 with a multiple year span. Annualized Return is not shown for a span of only one year, it would be the same number as Gain. The current year does show current YTD Gain, but the future gain of the current year is unknown, and will change every new market day. The Annualized sort ORDER is the Same ORDER (Not the same Value, but same ORDER) as the Gain column if no blank data years are included (if no orange cells, but orange cells will corrupt the order of the orange cells). 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.)

Current bond fund performance examples:

New bonds are currently earning more than the recent rate near zero. The SEC Yield for bonds is the actual previous 30 days gain (x12 AS IF it would remain the same rate to be a year's annual rate). It suggests the scale of the last 30 days as the annualized current rate, but it is NOT a promise of the future. Investing in bonds is very different than stocks. Bonds are Not affected by the stock market, but bond prices can be very volatile due to varying current interest rates. To fight the current high inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates, so resale value of existing bonds are dropping. Bonds can be as volatile as stocks, but which is not related to the market.
There is more to Bonds that you need to understand, see description at Things you need to know about Bonds.