Every January, I write a short review article to announce our best worst performers of the prior year. For this review, I considered only positions I owned throughout 2021. These include dividend growth stocks, dividend-paying stocks, growth stocks, and closed-end funds.

Of the 83 positions I've owned throughout the year, ten stocks had negative returns for the year. On average, these positions are up 22.11% for the year, though if I use a weighted average instead of an arithmetic average, the return is slightly better at 23.10%. These returns exclude dividends. 

My worst performer was Pinnacle West Capital (PNW), down 11.71% since Jan. 1, 2021. This year's best performer is Alphabet (GOOG), whose stock price increased by 65.17% in 2021. Here is a chart showing the price performance of DivGro positions I owned each and every day in 2021:

I'm thrilled with the overall performance and, especially, to see no fewer than ten positions with share price appreciation topping 50%. I have 22 positions with triple-digit percentage returns (including dividends):

Three of these positions are growth stocks: Netflix (NFLX), Amazon.com (AMZN), and GOOG. These companies do not pay dividends, so all of those profits come from share price appreciation alone. Remarkably, Apple (AAPL) (+122%) and Microsoft (MSFT) (+106%) have doubled my initial investment every year since I opened those positions.

Ten Worst Performers

The following table presents our ten worst-performing positions in 2021. These are all stocks I owned on Jan. 1, 2021 and that I still own today:

Interestingly, not a single stock in this year's worst performers list was in last year's worst performers list. However, FedEx (FDX) was the fifth-best performer in 2020 with a total return of 68.5%.

Ten Best Performers

The following table presents our ten best-performing positions in 2021. These are all stocks I owned on Jan. 1, 2021 and that I still own today:

Surprisingly, only MSFT repeats in this year's best performers list, and not a single stock in this year's best performers list was in last year's worst performers list.

Concluding Remarks

Of the 83 positions I've owned throughout the year, only ten stocks had negative returns for the year (with dividends excluded). The weighted average return of these stocks was 23.1%, which trails the S&P 500's performance of 26.9% but leads the performances of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (18.7%) and the Nasdaq Composite (21.4%).