Want to beat the S&P 500? Maybe you should be investing in CEOs instead of stocks. At least, if you consider the results of a new study published Monday by Chief Executive magazine, it might be worth a shot.
The study, calculated by Applied Finance Group, found that the top 50 CEOs delivered an average total shareholder return of 73.3% since June 2007. That, says Chief Executive, soundly trounces the S&P, which returned a paltry 14.9% over the same period.
Who are these paragons of production? The number-one CEO out of 338 studied was Jeffery H. Boyd of Priceline.com; the company did not have a ranking for 2009.
While the firms listed in the study aren’t drawn just from the financial world, the top five from that industry are listed in the accompanying chart, along with the top five (or bottom five, as the case may be) wealth destroyers, as the study calls them.