The Top Performing Stocks Since 2000 Might Surprise You

If you had invested $100 in the No. 1 best-performing stock this century, it turns out your investment would be worth a whopping $62,444 today. What stock might that be? It's not one of the big tech companies — it's Monster, the energy drink company.

And that's not the only surprise from this graph by personal finance site HowMuch, which visualizes how much a $100 investment in the 10 best-performing stocks of the 2000s would be worth today:

Netflix is the second-best performing stock of the century, and a $100 investment in the streaming company's stock back in 2000 would be worth $23,071 today, which is a nice return, but still only half the return rate of Monster.

And here's a list of the total return rates on $100 investments from the top 10 stocks:

1. Monster Beverage: 62,444%
2. Netflix: 23,071%
3. Equinix: 12,050%
4. Tractor Supply Company: 10,171%
5. Intuitive Surgical: 9,155%
6. Ansys: 7,856%
7. Apple: 7,416%
8. IDEXX Laboratories: 6,822%
9. Mastercard: 6,279%
10. Ross Stores: 6,003%

As HowMuch has also pointed out, the 10 best stocks since 2000 aren't dominated by one single industry and instead span various different sectors, from retail (Ross Stores) to payment services (Mastercard) to data services (Equinix).

[Read more at HowMuch]