Life Trader

2013 Proved to be a great year for those invested in domestic equity, with the S&P 500 alone yielding almost 30%. A performance not seen in more than one decade. 

Although Wall Street in general was highly profitable this year, there are some winners that are worth to mention for their outstanding returns:

1. Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) +300%
2. Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY) +238%
3. Micron Technology Inc. (MU) +228%
4. Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) +125%
5. Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI) +116%

Last year (2013) stock markets logged the best returns we have seen in over a decade, a performance not seeing since 1997. This is the final scoreboard:

S&P 500: 1,848.3 (26.39%)

Nasdaq: 4,176.5 (34.20%)

Dow: 16,576.6 (23.59%)

If you invested in any of the following through the year, or even better, you already had a stake on these products you're either a life trader or simply very lucky. Either way you deserve a pat in the back. In case you missed them, these were some of the best returns in 2013*: 

1. Japanese stocks (The Nikkei 225 is up more than 50% in 2013)
2. Greek government bonds (Up more than 50% so far this year), Greek Stocks (The Athex Composite index is up more than 30%) 
3. Tesla (Rising 318% this year), Netflix (Rising 293% this year) 
4. Bank of Ireland (Up 138% after its recent collapse to a penny) 
5. US Stocks (The S&P is up 25%) 
6. Spanish Bonds (Generated a return of around 12%) 
7. Shekels, the Israeli currency (Rising roughly 6% against the greenback) 

 If we could only know ahead the list for 2014... 

*NOTE: Due to its popularity and complicated nature I will be covering one the best and most controversial investments of our times in a future post (BitCoins ~ 4,000% ytd & their successor, LightCoins)