'Monster-ous' Returns: These Are The Top S&P 500 Stocks Over The Past 20 Years

Everyone knows that Apple has seen impressive returns in recent years, but looking back 20 years is even more striking.

As the best performing S&P 500 stock since 2003, it has returned a jaw-dropping 59,918% in returns.

Yet like Apple, several other companies have seen notable returns, rewarding investors who stayed the course.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Marcu Lu and Dorothy Neufeld, shows the top S&P 500 stocks over the last two decades, with data from YCharts.

Top S&P 500 Performers

Here are the best performing S&P 500 stocks, ranked by their 20-year total returns:

As we can see, six stocks soared over 10,000% led by Apple, Monster, and Nvidia.

Part of this can be explained by the fact that shares of Apple and Monster were trading for mere cents in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Intuitive Surgical (#4) IPO’d in 2000, and produces robotics used in surgeries.

With 13,442% returns, Netflix (#6) IPO’d in 2002, and was priced at $1 per share. The streaming giant projects its operating margins will hit 20% in 2023.

Overall, the top sectors for the best performing stocks were distributed across sectors, with tech, health care, and consumer discretionary seeing the highest number of risers.