Over the past 10 years, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has delivered a return of approximately 9% per annum for investors.
While this is a good return, it is short of what has been recorded by Wall Street's Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices.
But that doesn't mean that all shares have been underperforming their US counterparts.
For example, the three ASX 200 shares listed below have generated significant wealth for shareholders by returning more than 17% per year over the past decade.
Let's see what they have recorded and what $5,000 invested in 2015 would be worth now:
Goodman Group (ASX: GMG)
This integrated industrial property juggernaut has been a great place to park your money over the past decade.
Thanks to its focus on high growth markets, the company has delivered consistently strong earnings growth, which has helped drive its shares higher and higher.
So much so, this ASX 200 share has recorded a total return of 19.7% per annum since back in 2015. This would have turned a $5,000 investment into over $30,000 today.
Xero Ltd (ASX: XRO)
Another ASX 200 share that has smashed the market over the past decade has been cloud accounting platform provider Xero.
10 years ago in FY 2014, Xero had just surpassed 300,000 paying customers on its platform. And from these subscribers, the company was generating annualised monthly recurring revenue of NZ$93 million.
If you fast forward to today, Xero now has approximately 4.2 million subscribers and annualised monthly recurring revenue of almost NZ$2.2 billion.
Unsurprisingly, this rapid growth has done wonders for the Xero share price. As a result, its shares have generated a total return of 28.2% per annum for investors over the decade.
This would have turned a $5,000 investment into Xero's shares in 2015 into almost $60,000 today.
ResMed Inc. (ASX: RMD)
Finally, ResMed has been an ASX 200 share to own over the past 10 years.
During this time, the sleep disorder treatment company has grown its earnings at a very strong rate thanks to its leadership position, significant investments in research and development, and the growing awareness of sleep disorders.
This has led to ResMed's shares delivering investors a market-beating total return of 17% per annum for the period.
This means that if you had invested $5,000 into ResMed's shares at this point in 2015, your investment would now be worth over 24%.
