The 5 Best S&P 500 Stocks of the Last 10 Years

Key Points

• Shares of AI chip leader Nvidia have turned a $1,000 investment into $312,610 over the last decade.

• Shares of Nvidia competitor Advanced Micro Devices have turned a $1,000 investment into $93,250 over the last decade.

• Shares of cloud networking company Arista Networks have turned a $1,000 investment into $35,890 over the last decade.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

Short-term stock performance gets a lot of financial press, but much of it is meaningless noise. Long-term investors should consider a stock's long-term performance -- and its current growth prospects -- when making stock investing decisions.

A company's strong stock performance over the longer term, particularly in technology and other fast-evolving spaces, oftentimes reflects an agile and capable top management team and a winning business model.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

With that said, below are the five best-performing stocks on the S&P 500 index over the last decade through Friday, Sept. 26. If you're a growth stock investor, they are all worth considering buying, especially Nvidia.

Image source: Getty Images.

Best-performing stocks over the last 10 years

Stocks are listed in order of descending 10-year performance.

Data sources: Yahoo! Finance, finviz, and YCharts. P/E = price-to-earnings ratio. EPS = earnings per share. YTD = year to date. Data to Sept. 26, 2025.

1. Nvidia: 31,161% return over a decade

Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) are considered the gold standard for training artificial intelligence (AI) models and deploying AI applications. As such, the company's revenue and earnings growth have exploded upward since the advent of generative AI about three years ago. Generative AI has greatly expanded the potential use cases for AI.

In its fiscal second quarter, Nvidia's revenue soared 56% year over year to $46.7 billion. Growth was driven by a 56% surge in AI-driven data center revenue to $41.1 billion, which was 88% of total revenue. The data center sells GPUs and other compute products, along with high-performance networking products. The gaming, professional visualization, and auto platforms grew revenue 49%, 32%, and 69%, respectively.

The quarter's adjusted net income jumped 52% to $25.8 billion, translating to a 54% leap in earnings per share (EPS) to $1.05. These fantastic results were achieved despite Nvidia not selling any H20 data center AI chips to China because the U.S. government's export controls spanned the entire quarter.

2. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): 9,225% return over a decade

AMD competes with Nvidia in the discrete GPU market. It trails Nvidia considerably in the AI-driven data center GPU market -- which it just entered a couple of years ago -- and trails Nvidia moderately in the gaming GPU market. Along with GPUs, AMD also makes central processing units (CPUs), with Intel being its major competitor.

In its second quarter, AMD's revenue grew 32% year over year to $7.69 billion. By segment, revenue growth was data center, 14% to $3.2 billion; client, 67% to $2.5 billion; gaming, 73% to $1.1 billion; and embedded, negative 4% to $824 million.

Data center growth was significantly hurt by AMD being unable to sell AI-enabling MI308 GPUs to China due to the U.S. export controls. For context, in the first quarter, data center revenue jumped 57% year over year.

Moreover, AMD's profit was also hurt by the export controls, as it took inventory and related charges of about $800 million. Its adjusted net income was $781 million, with EPS of $0.48, down 30% year over year.

The China situation and AMD's scaling up of its data center GPU business, which currently sports a lower profit margin than its more established overall business, will likely weigh on the company's earnings growth for some time. That said, with demand for GPUs so powerful and the wait for Nvidia's GPUs sometimes extended, AMD's longer-term picture looks bright.

3. Arista Networks: 3,489% return over a decade

Arista is a leader in cloud networking solutions for large data centers and enterprise campuses. Specifically, it sells hardware, including high-performance Ethernet switches and routers, and software for monitoring and control of the network. The rapid adoption of AI is boosting demand for Arista's products.

In the second quarter, Arista's revenue increased 30% year over year to $2.2 billion. Product revenue grew 32% to $1.9 billion, and software and service revenue rose 23% to $328 million. Adjusted net income jumped 37% to $923.5 million, translating to EPS rising 38% to $0.73.

4. Broadcom: 3,356% return over a decade

Broadcom makes semiconductors and infrastructure software. Its strong recent growth is being driven by robust demand for its products for AI data centers, including custom AI chips and Ethernet networking products, and its November 2024 acquisition of software maker VMware.

The custom AI chips are application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for large tech companies that have designed their own AI chips. These are for internal use and, in some cases, for availability in their cloud computing services.

In its fiscal third quarter (ended Aug. 3), Broadcom's revenue grew 22% to $16.0 billion. AI-related revenue is growing like gangbusters. In the quarter, it grew 63% year over year to $5.2 billion, accounting for 33% of revenue. Adjusted net income surged 37% year over year to $8.4 billion, which translated to EPS rising 36% to $1.69.

5. Axon Enterprise: 2,906% return over a decade

Axon develops weapons and related technology products for the law enforcement, military, and consumer markets. The company makes Tasers, which are electroshock weapons that incapacitate the target; body-worn cameras; and other hardware and software products.

In the second quarter, Axon's revenue grew 33% year over year to $669 million, of which $292 million was recurring software and services revenue. Growth was driven by strong adoption of premium software and robust demand for Taser 10, Axon Body 4 body camera, and counter-drone equipment. Adjusted net income soared 83% year over year to $174 million, translating to EPS surging 74% to $2.12.

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Beth McKenna has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Arista Networks, Axon Enterprise, Intel, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: short November 2025 $21 puts on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.