What if you bought NextEra Energy in 2000?
US Industry · Utility. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play7.5× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in NextEra Energy at the start of 2000 would be worth about $7,500 today — 7.5 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
NextEra Energy, known as FPL Group until 2010, owns Florida Power & Light, one of the largest regulated utilities in the US. In 2000 that made it a sleepy dividend stock. What set it apart was a second business that became NextEra Energy Resources, which built wind farms and later solar plants across the country, becoming the world's largest generator of renewable energy from wind and sun.
The combination proved powerful. Florida's population growth gave the regulated utility a steady earnings base, while federal tax credits and falling technology costs made the renewables arm a growth engine. Through the 2010s NextEra was one of the best-performing utilities in America and, at times, the most valuable. It was not all smooth: attempts to buy Hawaiian Electric and Texas utility Oncor were rejected by regulators, and when interest rates rose sharply in 2022-23 the shares fell, since capital-intensive renewables and dividend stocks look less attractive when bonds pay more. Even so, a quarter century turned a dull utility into a long-term compounder.
The lesson: Boring sectors can hide growth stories; a regulated base providing stable cash can fund expansion into markets the rest of the sector ignores.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $10.00 | $7,500 | $4,626 | 7.5× |
| 2003 | $7.50 | $10,000 | $7,727 | 10.0× |
| 2005 | $9.00 | $8,333 | $5,763 | 8.3× |
| 2007 | $13.60 | $5,515 | $4,789 | 5.5× |
| 2008 | $17.00 | $4,412 | $4,626 | 4.4× |
| 2010 | $13.00 | $5,769 | $6,071 | 5.8× |
| 2012 | $15.00 | $5,000 | $5,312 | 5.0× |
| 2015 | $26.00 | $2,885 | $3,301 | 2.9× |
| 2018 | $39.00 | $1,923 | $2,519 | 1.9× |
| 2020 | $60.00 | $1,250 | $2,092 | 1.2× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2003, turning $1,000 into $10,000. The S&P 500 from that same year: $7,727.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. NextEra Energy is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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