What Stocks Made the Most Money over the Long Term?

If you are into investing for the long haul you ought to look at what stocks made the most money over the long term. In this regard an article in Yahoo Finance is useful. It turns out that just 14 stocks are responsible for 20% of all stock market gains since 1924.

In what truly is one of the most amazing statistics to ever come across our desks here at 24/7 Wall St., we recently saw a chart that showed that just 14 stocks have created 20% of all stock market gains in dollars since 1924. That is a phenomenal figure, considering the sheer number of companies that have come and gone in that time, and the overall wealth created in the stock market in the past 93 years.

The chart, which was sourced from Bloomberg/Henrik Bessembinder through a Jefferies research piece, contains many companies that have been around for years, but also sports four tech companies, albeit one has been around since 1911.

Here is the list starting with the ones that created the most stock market wealth.

  1. Exxon
  2. Apple Inc.
  3. General Electric Co.
  4. Microsoft Corp.
  5. International Business Machines Corp.
  6. Altria Inc.
  7. General Motors Co.
  8. Johnson & Johnson
  9. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
  10. Proctor & Gamble Co.
  11. Chevron Inc.
  12. Coca-Cola Co.
  13. AT&T Inc.
  14. Amazon.com Inc.

Are all of these companies relevant today? If so, are they good investment? Here are the stock prices and notes regarding the last ten years for the first half of the list.

Exxon sells today for $83 a share and in the last ten years has come up from $75 with a high of $102 and a low of $57. Its current dividend is 3.6% a year.

Apple trades at $130 a share today and pays a 1.75% dividend. Ten years ago a current share traded for $12 and the course of the stock has been generally upward for the decade.

General Electric trades for $29 a share and provides a 3.24% dividend. Ten years ago a share sold for $36 and in 2009 in the depths of the recession you could buy a share for $7. The course of the stock has been steadily upward for the last 8 years.

Microsoft sells for $63 a share and provides a 2.46% dividend. Ten years ago it sold for $29 and during the recession fell to $15 a share. It has grown steadily since then.

IBM sells for $175 a share and pays a 3.2% dividend. Ten years ago it sold for $97 a share and dipped to $74 a share in the recession and peaked in the $214 range over 2012 to 2013.

Altria sells for $71 a share with a 3.41% dividend. Ten years back the stock rode a five year peak up to $85 a share and fell abruptly to $20 in 2007. It has recovered steadily since then.

General Motors sells today for $36 a share and pays a 4.175 dividend. The old GM was the one responsible for all that growth and it went bankrupt during the Great Recession. The new post-bankruptcy company has been around since the beginning of 2011 and has traded between a 2012 low of $19 and a 2013 high of $49.

If you are interested in long term investing and want the stocks that made the most money over the long term look at the details as well. AT&T is not the phone company that connected America. Altria is no long the money machine that was Phillip Morris. IBM missed the boat on personal computers and is no longer the dominant force that it once was. Nevertheless this is a good list to start from for choosing long term cash cows to fund your retirement.

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