This week marks ten years since the bottom of the Great Recession in March 2009. Since then, the S&P 500 has almost quadrupled (total return), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is up 6x, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is up 9x, AMZN has gone up more than 20x, and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) is up 54x (after experiencing an 80% drawdown along the way).
In March 2009, the market was in panic mode. Many stocks were trading like their companies were going out of business. This is why many of the best performers in the past decade were under $5 per share (some were even under $1 a share). Bear markets create incredible long-term opportunities, but most people are not psychologically equipped to take advantage of them. Holding big winners for the long-term is never as easy as it seems in hindsight.
In the past decade, there are 235 stocks that went up more than 1000%.
- Out of them, 81 gained more than 2000%.
- Out of them, 42 increased more than 3000%.
- Out of them, 14 rose more than 5000%.
- With returns like these, who need angel investing?
Here are the top five performers for the past decade: