Nvidia and Netflix produced top shareholder returns over past five years as tech and media dominated, study shows

• According to a new study from BCG, tech and media companies have provided the top returns for investors over the past five years.
• Nvidia and Netflix produced the highest returns.
• Of the 10 companies with the top returns, five are from Asia.

Visitors crowd around the Nvidia booth at the 2016 China Digital Entertainment Expo, known as ChinaJoy, in Shanghai.

STR | AFP | Getty Images

If you made a lot of money in the public markets over the past five years, you were probably betting big on tech and media.

That's according to a new global study from the Boston Consulting Group, which said last week that the nine companies with the highest shareholder returns from 2013 to 2017 came from those two sectors. Chipmaker Nvidia was first, followed by Netflix, Broadcom, China's Tencent and Facebook.

“We have not seen such a dominance of effectively two sectors—technology and media and publishing—over the 20-year history" of this research, said Alexander Roos, a senior partner at BCG, in a press release on July 6. “It clearly shows how technology, data and content have become the most critical resources for value creation.”

BCG, in its Value Creators study, measures total shareholder return, or TSR, by taking the capital appreciation of a stock and adding in dividends. Kweichow Moutai, a Chinese producer and seller of distilled liquor products, ranked 10th and was tops among companies outside of tech and media.

The study ranked the five-year average TSR of 2,425 global companies. The top 10 companies on the list produced a five-year average TSR of 49 percent, led by Nvidia at 76 percent and Netflix at 71 percent.

Facebook earned its position in the top five in the first year of eligibility, now that it's been public for five years. The social network reaped an average TSR of 46 percent.

Five of the top 10 companies are based in Asia — Broadcom (which moved to the U.S. this year), Tencent, Sony, Keyence and Kweichow Moutai. Last year’s analysis, which covered the period from 2012 through 2016, had only three Asian companies in the top ten.

“The strong TSR performance of emerging Asian companies in the overall database suggests that the global large caps dominating the headlines today may be facing new challengers in coming years,” said Hady Farag, a BCG associate director, in the press release. “Take note of the up-and-coming companies around the world. They will likely be the next wave of new market entrants, competitors and acquirers.”