The stock market has been famously volatile this year: Just last week, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted nearly 1,600 points, and though this week has been calmer some investors remain on edge. But even given the market's wild swings and some lingering hesitance on Wall Street, an early investment in Boeing would still prove to have been a good move.
If you invested $1,000 in the aircraft-manufacturing company in 2008, that investment would be worth roughly $4,100 as of Thursday, according to CNBC calculations.
Your investment would have seen a lifetime total return of nearly 350 percent, including price appreciation and dividend gains reinvested.
In the charts below, all data splits are adjusted and gain-loss figures do not include dividends, interest, distributions or fees except on cash accounts. The portfolio value represents current holdings and the comparison charts represent current and historical prices of individual benchmarks, stocks or exchange-traded funds.
Despite wavering a bit, Boeing has still been a top-performing stock. In fact, only one week after inflation readings came in greater than expected, the company was among the top-five stocks tracked on the Dow, climbing an average of roughly 0.6 percent.
According to Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, economic factors such as tax reform have allowed the company to keep growing. The new legislation was "the biggest thing we could do in this country to unleash economic energy," he said in an interview with CNBC. "This is one of the best things that's happened in the last few months."
Boeing said the Trump administration's tax law changes have allowed for billions in additional investment into its business. Muilenburg's comments come just after the company reported setting an internal record for commercial aircraft deliveries in 2017.
While Boeing's stock has performed well, any individual stock can over- or under-perform and past returns do not predict future results.
If you're considering getting into the stock market, or thinking of expanding your portfolio, experts advise beginning carefully. Famed investors Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban and Tony Robbins suggest starting with index funds.
Index funds hold every stock in an index such as the S&P 500 and offer low turnover rates, attendant fees and tax bills, and fluctuate with the market to eliminate the risk of picking individual stocks.
If you're worried about the market's volatility, Buffett suggests you keep a level head and avoid making any rash decisions.
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Video by Brandon Ancil
