Loss-making companies among world’s best stock market investments. See list!

Stock market analysts spend hours scrutinising financial reports, watch businesses closely and interview company managers, all with a view to using numbers to put a value on a publicly listed stock. But, as this excellent analysis underscores, there can be more art and mystery to successful investing than arithmetic and accounting. Companies like Tesla, founded by South Africa-born Elon Musk, are among the big US-listed companies that are generating returns for stock holders, yet on paper they're not making a profit. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

Forty-five money-losing companies have at least matched the S&P 1500's 28% gain over the past year. That was highlighted by Philip van Doorn, investing columnist for Market Watch, who writes that monetary forces that have helped feed the bull market are so strong that scores of stocks have risen significantly over the past year even as the companies themselves have been losing money.

"In a Wall Street Journal article, James Mackintosh called Tesla and General Electric "the two most valuable loss-making companies," after Tesla's shares had doubled in three months and GE's stock had risen 44%," notes Doorn.

"The proportion of U.S.-listed companies losing money for three years reached its highest last year in data stretching back to the late 1990s," Mackintosh wrote, citing data compiled by Andrew Lapthorne, global head of quantitative research at Société Générale."

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