Home Finance The best S&P 500 stock of 2024 (so far) isn’t Nvidia. This is where history says the rising stock price will rise in 2025.

The best S&P 500 stock of 2024 (so far) isn’t Nvidia. This is where history says the rising stock price will rise in 2025.

by trpliquidation
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The best S&P 500 stock of 2024 (so far) isn't Nvidia. This is where history says the rising stock price will rise in 2025.

On November 20 Nvidia reported financial results for the third quarter of 2025, with a stunning 94% year-over-year revenue growth. The company is absolutely booming, and so is the stock price. At the time of writing, Nvidia shares are up almost 200% this year.

As impressive as these returns are for Nvidia, it’s not the best-performing stock in the sector S&P500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) this year. That distinction currently belongs to the energy company Vistra (NYSE: VST)which will increase by 332% by 2024.

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Vistra supplies electricity to homes and owns power stations, including nuclear power plants. And many investors believe its nuclear assets are setting it up to meet the growing energy needs of artificial intelligence (AI).

However, after gaining more than 300% in less than a year, is it too late to buy Vistra shares? The history of the stock markets can serve as a guide.

Looking at top stocks from the past can provide useful insights. For practical reasons, I had to limit the scope of this study by setting some parameters.

First, I only look at the past ten years for the S&P 500. Second, I only included stocks that were members of the S&P 500 for the entire year. Companies that were included in the index during the year were excluded from the results.

In the past 10 years Southwest Airlines, NetflixNvidia, Align technology, AMD, Devon EnergyAnd Western petroleum have all captured the top title at least once.

Year

Best performing stocks

Return when it was the best stock

Return the following year

2014

Southwest Airlines

125%

2%

2015

Netflix

134%

8%

2016

Nvidia

224%

81%

2017

Align technology

131%

(6%)

2018

AMD

80%

148%

2019

AMD

148%

100%

2020

Nvidia

122%

125%

2021

Devon Energy

179%

40%

2022

Western petroleum

117%

(5%)

2023

Nvidia

239%

196%*

Return data from YCharts. Table by author. *Year to date returns as of 11/21/24.

This data is actually quite surprising. After being the index’s top stock, you’d think it was due for a pullback. But in reality, the annual top performers from the past decade continued their winning streak the following year eight out of ten times.

Moreover, the average profit in the second year was enormous. Investors could have made a lot of money by simply buying the best stocks of the past year.

Let’s say an investor bought shares of Southwest Airlines on December 31, 2014 and held them for all of 2015. And let’s say this investor sold Southwest Airlines in late 2015 and rolled that investment over to Netflix for 2016, and then did the same for Nvidia. in 2017, and so on.

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