The 15 Best Wealth-Creating Stocks Over The Last Decade

Images by GettyImages; Illustration by Bankrate

Investors are always on the lookout for stocks that can create tremendous wealth, and the best stocks of the last decade have literally made trillions for investors. The last 10 years saw investors earn tons of wealth, profiting from emerging trends such as artificial intelligence, the rollout of massive data centers and semiconductors.

Here are the top 15 wealth-creating stocks of the last 10 years and where financial advisors say you need to look to find the next decade’s winning stocks.

The top 15 wealth-creating stocks

Below are the top wealth-building stocks of the last decade as measured by total wealth created, according to Morningstar. This includes capital gains — how much the stock rose — as well as dividends, the cash income paid to investors for owning the stock. The total wealth is measured over the 10-year period from 2015 to the end of 2024.

Apple and Microsoft are worth 10-11 times what they were a decade ago. Meanwhile, Tesla and Broadcom are worth 28-30 times more, and Nvidia is worth nearly 300 times more than in 2015.

In total, these companies created about $20.8 trillion in wealth over this 10-year period. Those numbers are staggering, and that’s why it’s vital to invest to safeguard your financial future. Anyone who invested in these stocks and held for this period enjoyed these massive returns.

The table ranks companies by the total wealth created rather than average annual returns or total return, so this list looks much different from the top stocks over the last decade. In fact, it looks a lot closer to the list of the stock market’s largest companies — and for a simple reason.

It’s much easier for a company that’s already worth $300 billion to create another $300 billion in wealth. It only needs to double in value over 10 years to do so. That’s an annual return of just 7.2 percent — below the average long-term return of 10 percent for the S&P 500 stock index. In other words, a reasonable performance from a large company could land them on this list.

And that’s just what we see with Berkshire Hathaway, which landed 10th on this list, generating $624 billion in wealth, at an average annual gain of 11.7 percent, the lowest return on this list. Berkshire was around a $300 billion company at the start of 2015 and then increased in value 201 percent — basically a triple from its starting price — to land its spot in the ranking.

But it’s going to be all but impossible for a smaller company — even one with, say, an $11 billion in market capitalization — to land on this list, unless they have an utterly outstanding performance. That’s basically what Nvidia did, topping this list after one of the best long-term runs of all time.

Here’s where to look for outsized returns

While it’s fun to gawk at these screamingly high numbers, investors should be paying less attention to the total wealth created than to the stock’s average annual returns. To put up the best returns, you’ll want to consider buying attractive small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks. These stocks have the potential to generate the kinds of eye-popping returns that you’re looking for, not just the most overall wealth. In other words, smaller trees have more room to grow.

The best small-cap and mid-cap stocks — the stocks with a lower total value of all their outstanding shares — have the ability to put up high annual returns. And that’s the figure that’s really going to help you compound your wealth faster. So if you can find one of these superstars, then it can be highly lucrative to hold on, letting your money compound with little extra work.

Working with a top financial advisor can help you identify the smart moves to make for your investment portfolio, keeping you on the long-term path to building wealth.

Bottom line

Investors have a lot of ways to make money in the market, and it’s important to focus on the ability of a stock to compound money, not just its total increase in market value. But these returns also show the importance of not interrupting a compounding machine by selling your investment and racking up capital gains taxes, which will slow your ability to make money.

Editorial Disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making an investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that past investment product performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.