The last decade has seen Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) rise to heights that would have been hard to imagine at the time the online bookstore had its initial public offering (IPO).
Indeed, at its beginning, there was so little faith in Amazon’s actual prospects that shortly after the firm went public, Barnes and Noble sued it over its claims that it was ‘the world’s largest bookstore’ even alleging it wasn’t a bookstore at all.
The world has changed significantly in the meantime, and not only has Amazon vastly overshadowed traditional bookstores, but it is no longer only recognizable as an online book seller but has also expanded to all faucets of e-commerce and, more recently, has taken part in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom with its cloud service – Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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With this stellar rise, AMZN shares also saw an increase in value, making any and all early investors who stuck around with long positions very wealthy by 2024 and raising the question just how much would even a modest investment made in the last millennium be worth now.
How much would an AMZN investment have grown in 25 years?
The digital frenzy and Amazon’s seemingly poor initial sales pitch means that it is likely few investors would have picked up AMZN stock immediately upon the IPO – though it would have been the most lucrative time, no doubt – meaning that Finbold decided to set 1999, a year before the Dot-com bubble burst as the year the hypothetical investment was made.
At the time, 25 years ago, after accounting for the stock splits that took place over the decades, Amazon shares were worth $3.31 a piece, meaning that $1,000 would have bought approximately 300.
Given that Amazon stock price today stands at $188.85, a $1,000 investment made in 1999 would have grown to a staggering $57,000.
The figures become even more ridiculous if we assume the hypothetical investment was made by a particularly savvy trader who spotted Amazon’s potential immediately upon the IPO.
Indeed, though Amazon went public at $18, the stock splits since mean turn the price of a single modern share in 1997 into as little as $0.090. This means that $1,000 would have bought approximately 11,000 shares the value of which would stand, at press time, at just over $2 million.
Plenty of room to grow left
Finally, though Amazon has already risen 25.66% since the start of 2024, the company’s latest earnings report prompted analysts and experts to revise their already bullish forecast.
Thus, with most forecasts predicting AMZN shares will surge to between $220 and $225 in the coming 12 months, the question for today’s investors is less whether the e-commerce blue-chip will rise to $200 and more when it will do so.
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Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
