25 Best Performing S&P 500 Stocks Since Obama's Election (RANKINGS, CHART)

And the winner is... Ford Motors.

Of all of the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, Ford has shown the biggest leap in value since President Obama's election last November. If you were fortunate enough to invest in the only Detroit automaker to avoid a government bailout last year, you would have earned a stunning 249 percent return on your investment.

We've compiled a list of the best performing S&P stocks since Obama's election - courtesy of Bespoke Investment Group. And, while it's always dangerous to draw inferences based on the vagaries of the stock market, Ford, which recently posted a $1 billion profit, has undoubtedly received a boost government's multi-billion dollar bailout of its Detroit rivals.

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs is the only top financial services firm in the best performers -- which may not surprise critics of the investment behemoth who are sure to spin conspiracy theories about its close ties to government officials. Likely buoyed by comparison shoppers, Amazon's stock has doubled during the downturn, as has the stock price of bargain travel site, Expedia.

Check out the top 25 performing stocks:

(Bespoke Investment Group)

Over the last year investor's have clearly placed an enormous amount of faith in technology stocks -- and, not surprisingly, the financial sector got hammered.

(Bespoke Investment Group)

So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section.

Get HuffPost Business On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[NO more Bonus]

11:47 AM on 11/05/2009

Due to Obama's inability to create an effective jobs program the only beneficiaries of this recovery is Wall Street- the same it's been since the 80's. FDP knew how to make work, but Obama doesn;t or chooses not to.

good articles; http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com
because of this he may lose in 2012.

[foxisms]

03:25 PM on 11/04/2009

And now, having seen this, there will be an even bigger run on some or all of these stocks.
This story should have had the text: "This is an advertisement" at the top of it.

[wealthandriches]

02:24 PM on 11/04/2009

Yes 249% for Ford! I've hit big!!

[yappnmutt]

02:23 PM on 11/04/2009

aside from all the other obvious issues with pronouncements of this kind the valuations must be adjusted for the declining value of the dollar.

[nopilikia]

02:08 PM on 11/04/2009

If it were a job increase chart for 25 different sectors of the American labor market I'd be more impressed.

[jennylynn]

01:38 PM on 11/04/2009

Worse economics ever. Even worse than Jimmy Carter.....wow.

[isolow]

01:25 PM on 11/04/2009

"THE MARKET, ONE YEAR LATER..." is still being propped up by lies and delusional accounting...

[FreeSpeech4All]

01:25 PM on 11/04/2009

The Dow could shoot to 20,000 points and it would matter not one bit to the real economy. The stock market is a casino for Wall Street that has nothing to do with what's happening on Main Street. The real economy is in the toilet and we're all dying out here...

[DesertShores]

02:02 PM on 11/04/2009

What? Over 50% of Americans hold stocks in publicly traded stocks or mutual funds.
If you are working you probably have an IRA of some sort. So it really matters to most Americans how the DOW is doing. When your IRA account is rising you tend to spend more money, thereby spreading the wealth. If you are not working you better hope that business does well so that you can get a job.

[FreedomCorpse]

12:52 PM on 11/04/2009

Never mind the fact that had someone bought the S&P 500 10 years ago, as an index, and factored in the loss of value of the dollar....they made nothing in those 10 years....oops

[Michele-Hopatcong]

12:28 PM on 11/04/2009

IRAs and 401k plans are a continual exponential source of investment assets in the United States. The enactment of Employee Retirement Income Security Act in 1974 helped push the Dow Jones industrial avg from 850 to 14,000+ by 2007’s final qtr. The Mighty Powerful US Pretax laws - Is this not the linchpin of the Mother Lode of flowing capital? Then came “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002”, which regs U.S. financial markets and U.S. publicly-traded companies. Our Gov should have mandated that only investments regulated by SOX be given Pre Tax exemption status in IRA and 401k plan portfolios. Imagine limiting US retirement investments to US controlled entities. “We the People” would be the big power brokers here and not the foreigner investors, speculators and hedge fund banks of Wall St. Imagine the power of playing by the rules because “IRA – 401K” is the BIG money source. High rollers could only play with other people’s money. So you see, instead of our President trying to get after all those greedy rats that nibbled away at our American cheese, it is time secure the cheese. Stop searching for rat holes to plug. We will never find them all –these are very inventive rats and they’re everywhere. Let’s just control their food source and many of them will shrivel away. It is as easy as Tax Regulation. For once taxes can be a good thing.

[balancedsolution]

11:56 AM on 11/04/2009

I don't trust markets nor do i trust the American markets anymore!

Nothing has changed and these greedy pigs broke their trust w/ the world.

[FoonTheElder]

11:48 AM on 11/04/2009

And yet through all this happy news, most of these companies are still laying off people and cutting back. So where's the real growth? Is it just big corporations taking advantage of their employees again.

Ford made a billion dollars this quarter, but they are still trying to negotiate salary cuts with its employees.

The insiders who rig the game on Wall Street continue to successfully live off of corporate welfare paid for by the people who are suffering due to Corporate America's corrupt and crooked financial scams.

[dlo2]

11:43 AM on 11/04/2009

Careful with your data, Huffington writer. You might want to find someone who understands finance and markets. Always question.

[ProudLiberalDemocrat]

10:54 AM on 11/04/2009

The measurement of time & stock prices is useless in this analysis.

The analysis should be which stocks are closer to their historic highs.

For instance, a $100 stock that traded down to $5 and is now back at $100 did not return 1900% unless you bought the stock for $5. But if that $100 stock is now trading for $105, you made 5%.

The analysis included in the above article is nonsense.

[FreedomCorpse]

12:48 PM on 11/04/2009

yep. Tunnel vision stock analysis is standard operating procedure these days apparently and is used to show how 'stupid' investors are that didn't buy at the exact bottom of some stock price.

[capitaldysfunction]

01:29 PM on 11/04/2009

Fanned and fav'ed. The name got me.

[PaloAltoPunk]

10:36 AM on 11/04/2009

Hmmm. This site published an earlier article that called Ford a "Zombie" stock.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/28/401k-investing-8-zombie-s_n_301696.html