10 Years Later: 5 Winners in a Thinking World

Motley Fool’s podcast revisits a five-stock sampler from May 2016 and compares its 10-year performance to the S&P 500. Using the SPY benchmark (S&P proxy), the broader market rose ~249.6% over the decade. The five-stock basket (Celgene, Disney, Splunk, Twitter, Zillow) averaged a 109.6% return and a blended market-equivalent return of 157.1%, trailing the benchmark by 47.5 percentage points. Two picks (Splunk, Twitter) were strong winners — both acquired (Cisco bought Splunk; Elon Musk bought Twitter) — while Disney and Zillow substantially underperformed. Celgene was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb. Hosts highlight lessons for investors: pivot risk, the value of distribution and brand, and the danger of strategic missteps (e.g., Zillow’s home-flipping pivot). Overall takeaway: individual winners can be powerful, but benchmark outperformance is hard to sustain and corporate pivots/acquisitions materially affect long-term outcomes.