Best Investments over the Last 100 Years? Almost All Are Tech Companies.
An analysis of the best-performing stocks over the last century found that nearly all top performers are technology companies, including Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, and SpaceX, highlighting the dominant role of tech in long-term investment returns.
Background
- The article runs a simple list: the top-performing S&P 500 stocks over 100, 50, 20, 10, and 5 years. Almost every spot is held by a tech company — semiconductors, software, electric vehicles, and space.
- "Tech" here is U.S.-heavy. The list is dominated by Apple (iPhones, services), Nvidia (AI chips), Tesla (EVs, energy storage), and SpaceX (satellites, rocket launch). These four names appear across multiple time horizons.
- Why it matters: the finding underscores how profoundly the U.S. stock market's long-term returns have been driven by a narrow set of technology giants — and how hard it is for non-tech sectors to keep up.
- Prior context needed: the S&P 500 is the main U.S. stock benchmark. "Compounded annual return" smooths out yearly ups and downs to show the steady growth rate over the full period. The 100-year and 50-year spans include companies that no longer exist or have been acquired — the analysis accounts for those by tracking a hypothetical continuous investment in the index's best performers at each starting point.