The 10 best-performing ASX 200 shares of 2022

Find out which 10 companies had the biggest growth in share price in 2022.

2022 was not an easy year for Australian sharemarket investors. As CommSec’s chief economist, Craig James, pointed out there was no shortage of challenges. “Inflation spiked higher on COVID-induced supply-chain issues and firm demand in major economies. War in the Ukraine served to push up a raft of commodity prices, especially energy and agriculture. And in response to rising prices, central banks across the globe scrambled to lift interest rates from emergency lows to levels that are generally seen as more appropriate for the times,” he explained.

“But the aggressive interest rate hikes – the size and speed of the moves – also raised recession concerns. These concerns dominated investor attention across the globe over the latter half of the year.”

The wash-up was the ASX 200 falling by 5.6% over the year, which was the biggest drop in four years. “Aussie investors can take some solace from the fact that it could have been worse. At a number of points over 2022 the ASX 200 was down by double-digits – for instance in June the ASX 200 was almost 14% lower than at the start of the year,” noted Mr James. He added that on a positive note, Australian share indexes held up better than most other advanced markets due to an outperforming economy.

The 10 best-performing ASX 200 shares of 2022

Canstar crunched the numbers to come up with the top 10 shares on the ASX 200 based on the growth of the share price from the first trading day of 2022 (4 January) to the last (30 December). Keep in mind that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance but, as you can see from the table below, the results are very impressive.

The table also shows how much money you’d have if you had invested $1,000 in any of these shares. To put these numbers in context, Canstar’s calculations show that the net total return (that includes dividends) for the S&P ASX 200 for the same period would have been -3.2% and $1,000 invested on 4 January would have been worth $968 on 30 December.

Top 10 best-performing ASX 200 shares of 2022

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Source: www.canstar.com.au. Prepared on 10/02/2023. Top 10 selected and table sorted in descending order by percentage change.

The star performer of 2022 was Australian coal mining company Whitehaven Coal Limited (ASX: WHC). Its share price grew by a whopping 241.3% from $2.76 at the start of the year to $9.42 by the end of 2022. That means a $1,000 investment could have turned into $3,413 by 30 December.

In second place is New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC) which describes itself as a “majority Australian-owned and operated diversified energy company”. It has operations spanning coal mining, exploration, port operation, oil, agriculture, innovative technologies and investment. Its return of 176.5% might not be as high as that of Whitehaven Coal but I don’t think many people would complain if they had invested $1,000 at the start of the year as they could have had $2,765 by the end of 2022.

Both Whitehaven Coal and New Hope benefited from the soaring price of coal in 2022. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sharply altered the dynamics of coal trade, price levels, and supply and demand patterns in 2022.”

Then there is lithium producer Core Lithium (ASX: CXO) which came in third. The share price started 2022 at $0.60 and experienced a fair bit of volatility over the year. It went as high as $1.87 in November before falling again to end the year at $1.025. That was still an impressive increase of 70.8% over the year.

Woodside Energy and Coronado Global Resources are not far behind with their share price jumping by 59.8% and 56.1% respectively over the course of 2022.

The remaining five companies in the list also achieved double-digit growth ranging from 37.3% to 47%.

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