Saturday, February 14, 2009

USA Top 10 Stocks 2001-2008

Reference from Motley Fool that these are the top 10 performers since last recession, you can read their full article here.

Company

Industry

Market Cap. on March 1, 2001
(in millions)

Return March 2001 to November 2001*

Total Return 2001-2008

Southwestern Energy

Oil & Gas Exploration

$262

 14%

 2,134%

Goldcorp

Gold

$274

 81%

 1,551%

Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL)

Computer Hardware

$6,489

 (1%)

 1,048%

Gilead Sciences 
(Nasdaq: GILD)

Biotechnology

$3,314

 80%

 887%

Priceline.com 
(Nasdaq: PCLN)

Internet Retail

$432

 72%

 835%

ITT Educational Services

Education Services

$721

 23%

 764%

Strayer Education

Education Services

$454

 64%

 739%

McAfee

Systems Software

$929

 191%

 726%

Flowers Foods

Food

$1,728

 139%

 683%

Range Resources

Oil & Gas Exploration

$298

 (24%)

 650%


This is the kind of article you should be very cautious when reading them.  Because the best this table can do is to mislead you for your next course of action.

As a matter of fact, there is really not much more than just saying these are the stocks who DID GOOD exactly from march 2001 to 2008.  If you shift the starting period to 2002 and 2003 ( ie. 2002-2008 and 2003-2008 ) you may be surprise to see how Apple, Mcaffee etc. significantly drop/rise in the ranking.  These two did good in the 2001-2008 ranking is NOT because they DID GREAT but because they DID TERRIBLY BAD to start with ie. in 2001 ( or as a matter of fact since 2000 ) and therefore as an overal growth compare from 2001 to 2008, their PERCENTAGE of growth is BIG.  Apple did great in the front period of 2001-2008 while Mcafee only improve slightly later at the end of period 2001-2008.

So It is much MORE important to see the trend of the growth rather than just the growth itself.