When I consider investing in a company, I like to see how their stock has performed over a long stretch of time.

And more specifically, how it's performed against broad market indexes, like the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 is a great benchmark for comparison.

Now, history doesn't guarantee future performance.

But if a stock has a long history of outperforming the S&P 500, that tells me it could be a more lucrative investment than an S&P index fund. And vice versa.

Let's look at some examples.

Example 1: Microsoft (ticker symbol MSFT)

Here's a comparison over the last 10 years of Microsoft vs the S&P 500.

Microsoft is the blue line, and the S&P is yellow.

We can see Microsoft has performed much better than the S&P index over the last decade.

Example 2: Coca-Cola (ticker symbol KO)

Here's a comparison over the last 10 years of Coca-Cola vs the S&P 500.

Coca-Cola is the blue line, and the S&P is yellow.

Here, we can see that Coca-Cola has performed much worse than the index over the last decade.

Example 3: Exxon (ticker symbol XOM)

And here's a comparison over the last 10 years of Exxon vs the S&P 500.

Exxon is the blue line, and the S&P is yellow.

This chart shows us that Exxon has performed much worse than the index.

Running comparison charts like these is a simple way to get a feel for a stock's performance.

And while I've used the S&P for the benchmark in the examples above, you can also run charts to compare stocks to other stocks.

Check out this comparison of three airline stocks:

United (ticker symbol UAL) = purple

Delta (ticker symbol DAL) = blue

Southwest (ticker symbol LUV) = green

The data shows us that Southwest Airlines has the best performing stock of the group, over the last decade.

I created these charts using comparison tools in my Etrade account.

And your brokerage platform should offer tools so you can run your own comparisons.

If you don't have a brokerage account yet, you can run comparisons on Yahoo Finance using their free tools.

And finally, if you have some stocks in mind, but you don't want to run your own charts, you can book a call with me.

Just bring your ticker symbols to our meeting, and I can run chart comparisons for you.

We can look at your stocks together.

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