The 2024 Buy List

The 2024 investing year is on the books!

This was another good year for Wall Street. In fact, this was the best two-year run the market has had since the 1990s, and it happened despite a lot of scary headlines.

Investors didn’t seem to mind. The S&P 500 notched 57 record closes this year. Not too long ago, many of the smart minds on Wall Street assumed that we’d have a recession. Not so!

In September, the Federal Reserve decided to cut interest rates for the first time in more than four years. Now the Fed seems to be having second thoughts about the pace of those rate cuts.

Higher-risk areas of the market did especially well in 2024. Bitcoin doubled, and gold had its best year since 2010.

This century is one-quarter over. The S&P 500 Total Return index is up 538.76% over the last 25 years, which works out to 7.7% per year (not including inflation), but it’s been a hit-or-miss century. Since the March 2009 low, the S&P 500 Total Return is up over 1,000%. As late as 2011, the market was underwater for the century.

I’m pleased to say that the 2025 Buy List performed well, although we didn’t do as well as the overall market. Much of this can explained by the sharp turn towards risk.

For the year, the S&P 500 gained 23.31%, and with dividends it was up 25.02%. Our Buy List was up 10.36% for the year, and with dividends, the gain was 11.61%. Much of our underperformance came during the last month of the year.

In 2024, the Buy List had a “beta” of 0.7255. That’s unusually low for us. I think this shows us how much risk the rest of the market was absorbing.

For the 19 years of the Buy List, the S&P 500 with dividends is up 583.91%, while our Buy List is up 656.85%.

Here’s a look at our Buy List versus the S&P 500 throughout the year (this doesn’t include dividends).

FICO was our biggest winner this year, with a gain of 71%. Last year, it was our second-biggest winner, and the year before that it was our biggest winner.

Fiserv and Miller Industries did well for us this year. Both gained 54%.

Celanese was our biggest loser this year, but that came after a 52% gain in 2023. Polar and Hershey were also down for us in 2024. Hershey was our biggest loser in 2023.

A year ago, we decided to sell TREX after it gained 95% for us in in 2023. Trex fell 16% this year.

McGrath RentCorp may have had the most dramatic year in 2024. It soared in January after it announced it was being bought out, but the deal dragged on for months as the government took a closer look. Finally, both companies decided to ditch the merger.

I always strive to be as transparent as possible when discussing our track record. Here’s a breakdown of how our Buy List performed in 2024. For tracking purposes, I assume the Buy List is a $1 million portfolio and that all 25 stocks are equally weighted at the start of the year.

Note that Amphenol split 2-for-1 on June 12.

Here’s the data behind the dividend-adjusted returns. I’ve listed each stock’s beginning price, ending price and dividend-adjusted starting price.

Posted by on December 31st, 2024 at 2:56 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.