Hindsight Is 20/20: These Are the Best 5 Stocks You Could Have Bought in 2015

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When it comes to investing, no one has a crystal ball. But it sure can be fun to pretend you do have one. Imagine, for example, that you were about to invest $10,000 in the stock market 10 years ago, starting in 2015. If you wanted to spread that money out among five stocks and beat the S&P 500’s 194% return over the following decade, which ones would you have picked?

These are the stocks you should have chosen, according to data from VisualCapitalist.

Nvidia (NVDA)

• 10-year return from 2015 to 2025: 27,360%

The honest truth is that if you had the foresight to invest your money in Nvidia 10 years ago, you wouldn’t even have bothered spreading out your investment among four other stocks. Nvidia has been the absolute king over the last decade, returning nearly six times as much as the second-best performing stock over the same time frame and a whopping 141 times the return of the S&P 500 index.

But it doesn’t stop just there. Nvidia is not only the best-performing S&P 500 stock over the past decade. It also holds that title over the last 5-, 15- and 20-year periods as well, according to VisualCapitalist.

If you had invested $2,000 of your $10,000 into Nvidia stock 10 years ago, you’d have an almost unfathomable $549,200. 

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

• 10-year return from 2015 to 2025: 4,817%

By nearly any metric — except a direct comparison with Nvidia — Advanced Micro Devices had a stellar decade. If you have invested $2,000 into AMD in 2015, you’d be sitting on $98,340. That’s a lot more than the $5,880 you’d have if you invested in the S&P 500. 

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that AMD is in the same industry as market leader Nvidia, making CPUs and GPUs. The chip maker is also one of the leaders of the burgeoning AI revolution, giving it legs in recent years and perhaps for the future as well.

Texas Pacific Land (TPL)

• 10-year return from 2015 to 2025: 3,558%

Texas Pacific Land is a company that many investors have likely never heard of. The company doesn’t produce any products or offer any services. It merely owns a huge amount of land in the vast, oil-rich Permian Basin in West Texas. But the stock has been one of the top-10 performers in the S&P 500 for the last 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year periods, one of only two stocks to manage that feat — the other, of course, being Nvidia.

The 3,558% return TPL provided over the past 10 years would turn $2,000 into $73,160.

Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO)

• 10-year return from 2015 to 2025: 3,216%

The Fair Isaac Corporation is much better known by its acronym, FICO and for one of its main products, the FICO score. But the company does much more than simply provide credit scores.  In fact, FICO owns more than 50 companies around the world, in industries ranging from textiles and hospitality to commercial real estate and luxury retail. 

All told, the company’s portfolio seems to be firing on all cylinders, as FICO’s stock has been one of the best performers in the S&P 500 for the past 10- and 15-year periods. If you invested $2,000 10 years ago, you’d now have $66,320.

Builders FirstSource (BLDR)

• 10-year return from 2015 to 2025: 2,927%

Builders FirstSource, like TPL, is another company that flies under the radar of most investors, particularly those who have tech-heavy portfolios. But the nation’s largest provider of structural building products certainly has had no shortage of work for the past 10 years and its loyal shareholders have benefitted. Builders FirstSource has posted a return of 15 times the S&P 500 over the past decade, turning $2,000 into $60,540. The company also ranks number eight in terms of top-performing stocks over the past five years, with its 634% return trouncing the S&P 500’s 87%.

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