DivGro's Best and Worst Performers in 2021

Every January, I write a short review article to announce DivGro's best worst performers of the prior year. 

For this review, I considered only positions I owned throughout 2021. These include dividend growth stocks, dividend-paying stocks, growth stocks, and closed-end funds. 

Of the 83 positions I've owned throughout the year, ten stocks had negative returns for the year. On average, these positions are up 22.11% for the year, though if I use a weighted average instead of an arithmetic average, the return is slightly better at 23.10%! These returns exclude dividends. 

My worst performer was Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), down 11.71% since 1 January 2021. This year's best performer is Alphabet (GOOG), whose stock price increased by 65.17% in 2021!

Here is a chart showing the price performance of DivGro positions I owned each and every day in 2021:

I'm thrilled with DivGro's overall performance and, especially, to see no fewer than ten positions with share price appreciation topping 50%!

I have 22 positions with triple-digit percentage returns (including dividends):

Three of these positions are growth stocks, Netflix(NFLX), Amazon.com (AMZN), and GOOG. These companies do not pay dividends, so all of those profits come from share price appreciation alone. Remarkably, Apple (AAPL) (+122%) and Microsoft (MSFT) (+106%) have doubled my initial investment every year since I opened those positions!  

Ten Worst Performers

The following table presents DivGro's ten worst-performing positions in 2021. These are all stocks I owned on 1 January 2021 and that I still own today:

DivGro's Worst Performers of 2021 (Excluding Dividends)
Ticker	Company	Sector	Total Return
PNW	Pinnacle West Capital	Utilities	-11.71%
MDT	Medtronic plc	Health Care	-11.69%
VZ	Verizon Communications	Communication Services	-11.56%
CMCSA	Comcast	Communication Services	-3.95%
CMI	Cummins	Industrials	-3.95%
AMGN	Amgen	Health Care	-2.15%
HON	Honeywell International	Industrials	-1.97%
MRK	Merck	Health Care	-1.74%
V	Visa	Information Technology	-0.92%
FDX	FedEx	Industrials	-0.38%

Interestingly, not a single stock in this year's worst performers list was in last year's worst performers list! However, FedEx (FDX) was the fifth-best performer in 2020 with a total return of 68.5%! 

Ten Best Performers

The following table presents DivGro's ten best-performing positions in 2021. These are all stocks I owned on 1 January 2021 and that I still own today:

DivGro's Best Performers of 2021 (Excluding Dividends)
Ticker	Company	Sector	Total Return
GOOG	Alphabet	Communication Services	65.17%
PSA	Public Storage	Real Estate	62.20%
LOW	Lowe's	Consumer Discretionary	61.04%
PFE	Pfizer	Health Care	60.42%
ACN	Accenture plc	Information Technology	58.70%
HD	Home Depot	Consumer Discretionary	56.24%
AVGO	Broadcom	Information Technology	51.97%
MSFT	Microsoft	Information Technology	51.21%
CVS	CVS Health	Health Care	51.04%
COST	Costco Wholesale	Consumer Staples	50.67%

Surprisingly, only MSFT repeats in this year's best performers list and not a single stock in this year's best performers list was in last year's worst performers list.

Concluding Remarks

Of the 83 positions I've owned throughout the year, only ten stocks had negative returns for the year (with dividends excluded). The weighted average return of these stocks was 23.1%, which trails the S&P 500's performance of 26.9% but leads the performances of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (18.7%) and the Nasdaq Composite (21.4%). 

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