Does Beating The Market Prove Flex Is A Great Company?
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Flex (FLEX) provides technology and manufacturing services, operating a Cloud and Power Infrastructure business that serves AI data centers. Its stock has beaten the S&P 500 in each of the last five years. A record like that looks like proof of an exceptional company. Out of 485 large U.S. stocks, how many do you think did the same?
How Rare Is Flex’s Winning Streak?
Only 9 of the 485 measured stocks beat the index in each of those five years, and Flex is one of them. The group is today’s S&P 500 members with five years of prices, so companies that left the index along the way are not counted. Each period below runs about twelve months, and the price changes exclude dividends.
| Period | The stock | S&P 500 |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 26, 2021 to Oct 26, 2022 | -1.3% | -16.3% |
| Oct 26, 2022 to Oct 27, 2023 | +39.2% | +7.5% |
| Oct 27, 2023 to Oct 29, 2024 | +83.6% | +41.7% |
| Oct 29, 2024 to Oct 31, 2025 | +80.3% | +17.3% |
| Oct 31, 2025 to Nov 3, 2026 | +40.9% | +10.7% |
Price changes over periods of 252 trading sessions each, dividends excluded.
In the latest year, 52% of these stocks beat the index, while only 30.3% did so in the year to October 2025. A single good year is ordinary, and five in a row is rare.
Could A Streak Like This Be Luck?
With this many stocks, a few will string together long streaks even if no company is better than any other. In a typical year, 42.5% of these stocks beat the index. Now suppose pure luck determines the outcome. Each year, you put all 485 names in a hat and pull out 42.5% of them as that year’s winners.
Repeat that process five years in a row, and about seven names come out every single time. Seven companies would have a five-year winning streak with no skill involved at all. In fact, 9 companies have such a streak, a few more than luck alone would give. That leaves room for some of them to be there on merit, but you cannot tell which ones from the share price.
Did Flex’s Profit Grow Through The Streak?
Flex’s net income, which includes one-time items, rose in only two of the five years. Over the whole streak it grew 4.7%, while the share price rose 540.9%. In the year to October 2025, net income fell 7.3% and the stock still beat the index.
Operating profit did better, rising about 55% over the same stretch, with all of that gain occurring in the last two years. For most of the streak, though, Flex’s share price climbed far faster than its net income.
What To Watch Instead Of The Streak
Flex’s fastest growth now comes from Cloud and Power Infrastructure, whose revenue rose 54% in fiscal Q2 2027, management said on the October 28, 2026 call. Management expects that business’s revenue to rise 75% to 85% in fiscal 2027, with acquisitions accounting for about 10 percentage points of that growth. Flex plans to spin the business off as a separate company, Axiom, in early 2027.
The five-year streak describes Flex’s share price, not its profit. The figure to watch is Flex’s net income over twelve months, which the company is expected to report next in February 2027.
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