If You'd Invested $10,000 in General Electric Stock 10 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Today
So you're wondering how much money you'd have now if you'd invested $10,000 in the stock of General Electric (NYSE: GE) -- now doing business as GE Aerospace -- 10 years ago. That's a fine question, and the answer, according to theonlineinvestor.com is: $13,947 for the period from May 1, 2014, to May 1, 2024. If that's sounding pretty good to you, know that it really isn't. It reflects an average annual gain of about 3.4%, over a period when the S&P 500 index of 500 of America's biggest and best companies averaged roughly 11.4%. (The S&P 500 would have turned your $10,000 into $29,407!)
If you had happened to reinvest your dividends from General Electric into more shares of General Electric, the picture gets better -- a little: Your average annual gain would have been 4%, bringing your stake to a value of $14,793 after 10 years. (Of course, reinvesting dividends from an S&P 500 index fund would have got you an average annual gain of roughly 12.25%, totaling $31,817 after 10 years.)
You could have done wildly better in many other stocks, too. Recent superstar Nvidia, for example, averaged 69% annually over the period and would have turned your $10,000 into $1.9 million with dividends reinvested. Even a less mind-blowing stock, such as Lowe's, averaged 19% (without reinvesting dividends), turning $10,000 into $54,123.
Source Fool.com
