McDonald’s (MCD) had the highest return between 1981 and 1986 by a mega-cap US stock, returning 6,172.9%.

ASSET	YEARS	% RETURN
McDonald’s (MCD)	1981-1986	6,172.88%
Home Depot (HD)	1981-1986	1,205.39%
Walmart Inc Common Stock (WMT)	1981-1986	1,166.74%
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)	1981-1986	555.81%
Toyota Motor Corporation ADR (TM)	1981-1986	398.68%
Coca-Cola (KO)	1981-1986	358.6%
Walt Disney (DIS)	1981-1986	263.87%
GE Aerospace (GE)	1981-1986	255.21%
Abbott Laboratories (ABT)	1981-1986	255.1%
Merck (MRK)	1981-1986	251.27%
Bank of America (BAC)	1981-1986	228.68%
Eli Lilly and (LLY)	1981-1986	198.38%
Procter & Gamble (PG)	1981-1986	190.2%
JPMorgan Chase (JPM)	1981-1986	171.28%
International Business Machines (IBM)	1981-1986	125.28%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	1981-1986	99.28%
UnitedHealth (UNH)	1981-1986	88.76%
Wells Fargo (WFC)	1981-1986	87.23%
Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO)	1981-1986	86.58%
Exxon Mobil (XOM)	1981-1986	75.56%
Microsoft (MSFT)	1981-1986	72.34%
American Express (AXP)	1981-1986	62.09%
Raytheon Technologies (RTX)	1981-1986	33.35%
Apple (AAPL)	1981-1986	17.36%
Chevron (CVX)	1981-1986	17.08%

Mega-cap stocks are treated as having a market cap of $200B+.