Every year, and the stocks that led it

Because it has not finished. Every figure here is measured December close to December close, so a year only becomes available once it has ended and our data pipeline has run again. A partial year reported as a year is exactly the sort of quietly wrong number that costs a data site its credibility, so we would rather show nothing.

To 2007. The limit is our price history rather than a choice: the record reaches about twenty years for the longest-listed companies, and the first year of any series is dropped because it is partial by construction. Earlier years exist for a handful of companies but not for enough of them to rank.

Total returns. Prices are adjusted for dividends and stock splits, so dividends are treated as reinvested — which puts these figures a little above the price changes usually quoted in the press. Demergers are not credited, because our data source does not adjust for them, and brokerage and taxes are not modelled.

Almost never, and comparing any two of these pages is the quickest way to see it for yourself. A year of exceptional returns usually reflects a recovery from a low base, a favourable cycle, or a re-rating — none of which repeat indefinitely. That is the most useful thing a set of year-by-year rankings can show, and it is the opposite of what a single year’s list implies.

Because averages are pulled around by extremes. In a year where a handful of stocks return several hundred percent, the average can sit far above what the typical company did — in 2024 the average was +34.8% while the median was +24.5%. Each year page shows both, and the gap between them tells you whether a year was broad or narrow.