Top performing stocks of 2006

These 20 stocks produced the largest total returns to shareholders in 2006. For this list, we included only Fortune 500 companies that traded for at least $2.

General Motors (<a href='//money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GM'>GM</a>)
General Motors (GM)
Total return: 64%
Fortune 500 rank: 3
Still not quite a fairytale story in Detroit, GM nonetheless made healthy progress in digging itself out of a hole in 2006, sending shares climbing over 60 percent on the year. In its fourth-quarter earnings, the company neared the breakeven point, compared to a $1.4 billion loss in the year-ago period.

While Japanese competitors still pulled down even greater U.S. market share in 2006, GM did get a boost from renewed interest in sport-utility vehicles. Long-term, though, the firm is still burdened with high union wages and big retirement obligations for its workers.

See more Fortune 500 data for General Motors
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Total return to investors includes both price appreciation and dividend yield to an investor in the company's stock. The figures shown assume sales at the end of 2006 of stock owned at the end of 2005.
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.