Hindsight can be frustrating. We kick ourselves for not buying Apple shares ten years ago, when they were $12.50 each. On February 13th they rose above $500. So $100 invested in Apple in February 2002, around the time it unveiled its redesigned iMac, would be worth almost $4,000 today. The same investment in Sberbank, Russia's biggest state-owned bank, would now be worth more than $3,700. But cheer up. We can at least be grateful that we didn't buy shares in Allied Irish Banks or AIG. Bets of $100 in those firms ten years ago would now be worth $1.33 and $2.21 respectively. Western financial institutions have been by far the worst investment of the past decade. As for the next one, who knows? (Because this chart looks at the 200 biggest existing companies that also existed in 2002, it ignores both new and recently bankrupt firms.)