Markets
Pandemic Recovery: Have BEACH Stocks Bounced Back?
Pandemic Recovery: Have BEACH Stocks Bounced Back?
The travel and entertainment industries have had a volatile ride over the last year.
During the initial stages of the pandemic, when panic and uncertainty ran rife, BEACH stocks–booking, entertainment, airlines, cruises, and hotels—were left scrambling. Collectively, $332 billion in market cap washed away.
Now, it appears the tide might be turning for these companies, buoyed by vaccine breakthroughs and glimmers of hope for a return to normalcy.
This infographic looks at the growth in market cap value across BEACH stocks one year from when the WHO officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Washing Back to Shore?
BEACH stocks have gained a collective $376 billion in market cap in the year since the pandemic was declared, with about half the companies trading at their respective all-time highs.
In fact, about 70% of BEACH stocks have actually outperformed the S&P 500, which returned 43.7% during the same period.
Company | Ticker | Category | Market Cap: 03/11/20 ($B) | Market Cap: 03/11/21 ($B) | Change |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
American Airlines | AAL | Airlines | 7.2 | 14.2 | 96% |
Southwest Airlines | LUV | Airlines | 23.5 | 34.4 | 46% |
Alaska Air Group | ALK | Airlines | 5.7 | 8.1 | 42% |
United Airlines | UAL | Airlines | 13.0 | 17.2 | 33% |
Air Canada | AC | Airlines | 5.9 | 7.9 | 33% |
Delta Air Lines | DAL | Airlines | 29.1 | 30.9 | 6% |
Expedia Group | EXPE | Booking | 12.0 | 24.6 | 105% |
Allegiant Travel | ALGT | Booking | 2.0 | 4.1 | 98% |
Booking Holdings | BKNG | Booking | 64.0 | 96.0 | 51% |
Caesars Entertainment | CZR | Casino & Hotel | 2.2 | 20.8 | 824% |
Norwegian Cruise Lines | NCLH | Cruise & Casino | 4.3 | 10.9 | 151% |
Royal Caribbean Cruises | RCL | Cruise & Casino | 10.8 | 22.4 | 108% |
Carnival | CCL | Cruise & Casino | 16.4 | 31.8 | 93% |
Penn National Gaming | PENN | Entertainment & Live Events | 2.6 | 20.4 | 661% |
Six Flags | SIX | Entertainment & Live Events | 1.7 | 4.1 | 142% |
Live Nation | LYV | Entertainment & Live Events | 10.8 | 19.3 | 79% |
The Walt Disney Co | DIS | Entertainment & Live Events | 201.2 | 357.1 | 77% |
Cedar Fair | FUN | Entertainment & Live Events | 1.8 | 2.8 | 57% |
Hilton | HLT | Hotels | 25.0 | 34.6 | 38% |
Marriott International | MAR | Hotels | 35.6 | 48.2 | 35% |
Choice Hotels International | CHH | Hotels | 4.5 | 5.9 | 30% |
Hyatt Hotels | H | Hotels | 6.7 | 8.7 | 29% |
Marriott Vacations Worldwide | VAC | Hotels & Resorts | 3.8 | 7.7 | 103% |
Vail Resorts | MTN | Hotels & Resorts | 7.1 | 13.4 | 88% |
Park Hotels & Resorts | PK | Hotels & Resorts | 3.4 | 5.3 | 58% |
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts | WH | Hotels & Resorts | 4.2 | 6.4 | 51% |
MGM Resorts International | MGM | Resorts & Casino | 10.2 | 19.3 | 89% |
Wynn Resorts | WYNN | Resorts & Casino | 9.7 | 15.9 | 64% |
Las Vegas Sands | LVS | Resorts & Casino | 40.7 | 48.2 | 18% |
BEACH Stocks Leaders and Laggards
When dissecting this basket of stocks by industry, it’s clear that much of the recovery story is lopsided. One reason for this, despite the pandemic, is that there are more granular, idiosyncratic trends occurring within these sectors.
Let’s look at what’s propelling the leaders, and dragging down the laggards:
Leading: Online Betting
There’s reason to be bullish on gambling stocks. Since late 2018, some 20 states have legalized sports betting, with more expecting to follow. Relative to other areas, the pandemic has been kind to gambling stocks. Many of those with an online presence have witnessed a spike in traffic, as more people continue to flock towards online betting.
Within the BEACH stocks basket, Penn National Gaming and Caesars Entertainment are clear outliers, having grown an epic 661% and 823% respectively. In addition, the broader industry (measured by the BETZ ETF) has nearly doubled the performance of the S&P 500 since its inception.
Laggard: Airlines
The return to normalcy will be much more delayed for airlines. Global RPKs, an industry metric, are not expected to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2024.
Actions of insiders also seem to match this negative sentiment. Warren Buffett, once a staunch supporter of airlines, decided to call it quits during the pandemic—dumping his entire position.
U.S. airline executives have collectively been selling their stakes much more aggressively than in the last few years. To add insult to injury, there’s significant shorting of airline stocks as well. At a short interest of 11.6%, American Airlines is most heavily shorted BEACH stock.
Laggard: Hotels
In a year where social interactions and gatherings have largely disappeared, so too has much of the business activity for hotels. For instance, Hilton sales suffered a 58% decline year-over-year.
But even without the pandemic, the hotel industry had their work cut out for them, through a growing and formidable competitor in Airbnb. Airbnb can scale its network beyond what any hotel can. This is evident in its room count, which is greater than the largest hotels combined.
More Bumps On The Road Ahead?
The investing landscape today looks to be disconnected from reality, in part because of the forward-looking nature of markets. Even though things are dire today, there’s a belief that light exists at the end of the tunnel.
But the path to recovery isn’t quite so linear. When the dust settles, it’ll become more apparent which industries will “return to normal” and which have set out permanently on a new trajectory.
Markets
The 50 Best One-Year Returns on the S&P 500 (1980-2022)
The highest one-year return among the top S&P 500 stocks from 1980 to 2022 was a staggering 2,620%. Which stocks top the ranks?
The Top S&P 500 Stocks by Annual Returns
The average annual return of the S&P 500 was 10% from 1980-2022, excluding dividends. Of course, there are some companies that deliver much higher returns in any given year.
In this graphic using data from S&P Dow Jones Indices, we explore the top S&P 500 stocks with the best single year returns over the last four decades.
Ranking the Top S&P 500 Stocks
In order to find the top gainers, S&P took the top 10 best-performing stocks each year and then narrowed that list down to the top 50 overall. They ranked the top S&P 500 stocks by price returns, meaning that no dividends or stock distributions were included.
The best gains were clustered in a few select years, including the 1999 dot-com boom, the 2003 stock market rally, and the 2009 recovery from the Global Financial Crisis. None of the biggest gains happened in 2021 or 2022.
Rank | Company | Sector | Return | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Qualcomm | Information Technology | 2620% | 1999 |
2 | Tesla | Consumer Discretionary | 743% | 2020 |
3 | DSC Communications | Communication Services | 468% | 1992 |
4 | Coleco Industries | Consumer Discretionary | 435% | 1982 |
5 | Avaya | Information Technology | 428% | 2003 |
6 | Chrysler | Consumer Discretionary | 426% | 1982 |
7 | XL Capital (Axa XL) | Financials | 395% | 2009 |
8 | Tenet Healthcare | Healthcare | 369% | 2009 |
9 | Dynegy | Utilities | 361% | 2000 |
10 | Advanced Micro Devices | Information Technology | 348% | 2009 |
11 | Sprint | Communication Services | 343% | 1999 |
12 | Ford | Consumer Discretionary | 337% | 2009 |
13 | NEXTEL Communications | Communication Services | 336% | 1999 |
14 | LSI Logic | Information Technology | 319% | 1999 |
15 | NVIDIA | Information Technology | 308% | 2001 |
16 | Nortel Networks | Communication Services | 304% | 1999 |
17 | Etsy | Consumer Discretionary | 302% | 2020 |
18 | Genworth Financial | Financials | 301% | 2009 |
19 | Micron Technology | Information Technology | 300% | 2009 |
20 | NetFlix | Communication Services | 298% | 2013 |
21 | Oracle | Information Technology | 290% | 1999 |
22 | Western Digital | Information Technology | 286% | 2009 |
23 | Network Appliance (NetApp) | Information Technology | 270% | 1999 |
24 | Data General | Information Technology | 267% | 1991 |
25 | Yahoo | Communication Services | 265% | 1999 |
26 | Williams Companies | Energy | 264% | 2003 |
27 | Novell | Information Technology | 264% | 1991 |
28 | Dynegy | Utilities | 263% | 2003 |
29 | Sun Microsystems | Information Technology | 262% | 1999 |
30 | PMC-Sierra | Information Technology | 262% | 2003 |
31 | Advanced Micro Devices | Information Technology | 259% | 1991 |
32 | Dell | Information Technology | 248% | 1998 |
33 | Global Marine | Energy | 247% | 1980 |
34 | Micron Technology | Information Technology | 243% | 2013 |
35 | Best Buy | Consumer Discretionary | 237% | 2013 |
36 | Reebok | Consumer Discretionary | 234% | 2000 |
37 | Freeport-McMoRan | Materials | 229% | 2009 |
38 | Biomet (Zimmer Biomet) | Healthcare | 226% | 1991 |
39 | NVIDIA | Information Technology | 224% | 2016 |
40 | Gap | Consumer Discretionary | 223% | 1991 |
41 | NetFlix | Communication Services | 219% | 2010 |
42 | Fleetwood Enterprises (Fleetwood RV) | Consumer Discretionary | 217% | 1982 |
43 | National Semiconductor | Information Technology | 217% | 1999 |
44 | Dell | Information Technology | 216% | 1997 |
45 | Tandy Corp (RadioShack) | Information Technology | 216% | 1980 |
46 | Novell | Information Technology | 215% | 2003 |
47 | Corning | Information Technology | 215% | 2003 |
48 | CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) | Real Estate | 214% | 2009 |
49 | AES Corp | Utilities | 213% | 2003 |
50 | Expedia | Consumer Discretionary | 212% | 2009 |
Qualcomm was by far the top-performer in any one calendar year window. The company had key patents for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which enabled fast wireless internet access and became the basis for 3G networks.
Its stock took off in 1999 as it shed less profitable business lines, resolved a patent dispute with competitor Ericsson, and joined the S&P 500 Index. At the time, CNN reported that one lucky investor who heard about Qualcomm from an investment-banker-turned-rabbi earned $17 million—roughly $30 million in today’s dollars.
The most recent stocks to make the rankings were both from 2020: well-known Tesla (#2) and lesser-known online marketplace Etsy (#17), which saw sales from independent creators surge during the early COVID-19 pandemic. The dollar value of items sold on Etsy more than doubled from $5.3 billion in 2019 to $10.3 billion in 2020, with mask sales accounting for 7% of the total.
Biggest Gainers in Each Sector
While information technology stocks made up nearly half of the list, there is representation from nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors. No companies from the Industrials or Consumer Staples sectors made it into the ranks of the top S&P 500 stocks by annual returns.
Below, we show the stock with the best annual return for each sector.
Tesla was the top-performing Consumer Discretionary stock on the list. After meeting the requirement of four consecutive quarters of positive earnings, it joined the S&P 500 Index on December 21, 2020. The company’s performance was boosted by the announcement that it would be included in the S&P 500, along with strong performance in China, and general EV buzz as environmental regulations tightened worldwide.
In the realm of Communication Services, DSC Communications saw a sizable return in 1992. The telecommunications equipment company had contracts with major companies such as Bell and Motorola. Alcatel-Lucent (then Alcatel), a French producer of mobile phones, purchased DSC Communications in 1998.
Serial Success Stories
It’s impressive to make the list of the top S&P 500 stocks by calendar returns once, but there are seven companies that have done it twice.
Some stocks saw their repeated outperformance close together, with Dell making the ranks back-to-back in 1997 and 1998.
On the other hand, a select few have more staying power. Computing giant NVIDIA topped the charts in 2001 and triumphed again 15 years later in 2016. And this year might be another win, as the company has recently reached a $1 trillion market capitalization and has the highest year-to-date return in the S&P 500 as of July 6, 2023.
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