How our U.S. All-Stars performed over the past year

Overview U.S. All-Stars Top 500 U.S. Stocks Past Performance Top Canadian Stocks

A good hitter in baseball might connect with a ball and have it drop in for a hit about 25% of the time. Players who manage that feat more than third of the time are considered elite, which is all to say hitting is hard.

So is investing. Selecting stocks that have a positive return after a year is one thing, but selecting ones that outperform the broader index is another. If a third of the stocks in your portfolio topped the index you’d be pretty good investor; MoneySense’s U.S. All-Star stocks connected 60% of the time last year.

Three-quarters of the stocks had double digit gains. Just four equities out of a portfolio of 28 stocks dipped into the red, and only one of which (Gamestop) fell more than 10%. Overall, the portfolio produced a total return of 24.5%. By comparison, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF generated a total return of 22.1% over the same period.

Thor Industries, a U.S. manufacturer of RV’s, was the MVP in our All-Star team this year with a total return of 61.6%, including dividends. Trinity Industries and Owens Coring were the next best performers, each up more than 50% on the year.

The All-Star stocks are the stocks with the best growth and value profiles, but our report also takes an qualitative approach to identify the best value and growth stocks overall. As well as the All-Stars performed, these two groups of stocks performed even better, each delivering a return of nearly 28%.

To find the best performer overall, you’ll have to look to the All-Star Growth stocks where you’ll find United Rentals, which rents everything from scissor lifts to portable generators. Since we named it a growth All-Star in 2017 the stock is up 88%, continuing a run that began in January 2016.

Here is a full look at how our All-Stars performed: