S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) shares have gained a combined 12.5% over the past three years.
Now that's not including the dividends that many of these companies pay out to their shareholders.
For that, we turn to the S&P/ASX 200 Gross Total Return Index (ASX: XJT), which includes all cash dividends reinvested on the ex-dividend date.
This tells us the accumulated value of ASX 200 shares has gained 27.2% over three years.
If I'd achieved benchmark matching gains then, a $10,000 investment in the full basket of 200 stocks would see me sitting on $12,720 today.
Not bad.
But it's nowhere near the returns delivered by this star player.
Image source: Getty Images
This ASX 200 share has soared 409% in three years
The company in question is ASX 200 coal share Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC).
On 12 February 2021, I could have bought Whitehaven shares for $1.51 apiece. Or 6,622 with my $10,000 investment.
This was right about when thermal and coking coal prices began to surge. Coal prices then continued to rise to all-time highs in September 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier in February 2022.
Despite coal prices coming off the boil since then, and the Whitehaven share price retracing from its own record highs, the coal miner is currently trading for $7.69 a share. That sees the ASX 200 share up an eye-popping 409%, and sitting on a net cash position of $1.5 billion.
That in turn would have seen the value of my 6,622 shares grow to $50,923.
And we haven't yet factored in the four dividend payouts I would have received from Whitehaven shares over this period.
Over the past three years, the ASX 200 share has delivered a total of $1.15 per share in dividends.
Adding that back (assuming I kept the dividends in cash and didn't reinvest them) my 6,622 Whitehaven shares purchased for $10,000 three years ago would be worth $8.84 apiece.
Or a total of $58,538.
Boom!
