Publically-Held Electrical Contractors Lead Market in YOY Share Price Gains

It was a wild year overall on Wall Street, with a handful of tech stocks accounting for a huge amount of the market’s overall gains. The S&P 500 Index notched a second consecutive of +20% gains, in large part due to the explosive growth of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks — Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Google, Meta (Facebook) and Tesla. It’s some truly impressive growth for the S&P,  when you consider that over the past 10 years, the average annual return for the S&P is between +11% and +13%, depending on the source.

The electrical market had a handful of stocks that also showed some magnificent year-over-year (YOY) growth during 2024 that topped all three market indices, according to stock data at Yahoo Finance. It was a particularly good year for electrical contractors. IES Holdings led the parade with +156% growth during 2024, followed by EMCOR at +113.6% YOY, and Quanta Services at +49.8%. Topping the S&P 500 Index’s 2024 YOY return of +23.9% amongst electrical equipment manufacturers were Belden (+44.3%); Acuity Brands (+43.8%); Eaton (+38.9%): LSI Industries (+38.8%); Schneider Electric (+34.7%); Nexans (+33%); Emerson Electric (+29.3%); Hubbell (+28.6%); and ABB (+26.3%). With an annual return of +28.8%, W.W. Grainger was the only distributor of electrical supplies topping that mark.

Other stocks that beat the S&P 500 historical average annual returns over the past decade included Generac (+21.7%); Federal Signal (+21.7%); 3M (+17%); and nVent Electric (+16.9%). As you can see in the chart below, a handful of stocks had a much tougher year, including two stocks very sensitive to the cyclical nature of steel prices — Atkore, which saw its shares lose -48.9% of their value in 2024 and Nucor, which was down -33.2%. Shares of these stocks have also seen some solid gains in recent years. Other stocks on the downside of the cycle over the past year include Mersen (-41% YOY) and Signify (-28.5%).

Who's Tops in 5-Year Growth?

With all that’s gone on in the economy over the past five years, I thought it would be interesting to look at the total cumulative gains or losses of the shares of the 50-plus manufacturers, distributors, contractors, retailers and other players in the electrical market since 2020, and that data is in the chart below. It’s interesting to note that once again three electrical contractors were at the top of the list with spectacular gains: IES Holdings, which saw its shares increase from $25.13 on Jan. 2, 2020 to $200.96 on Dec. 31, 2024 for a cumulative percent gain of 699.7%; Quanta Services, up 699.2% since 2020; and EMCOR, up 424.4%.

Eaton led all electrical manufacturers with a five-year cumulative gain of +246.2%, followed by LSI Industries (+218.6%); Freeport McMoRan (+204.6%); Federal Signal (+182.8%); and Hubbell (+182.1%). WESCO led all distributors when measured by five-year gains in share prices with a +207% increase and W.W. Grainger logged a +205.8% gain.