Time Machine Society › Stock what-if calculator
If you had invested $1,000 in Amazon stock (1997–2024)
$1,000 of Amazon (AMZN) stock bought at the end of 1997 would have been worth $874,064 at the end of 2024 — 874x your money. Bought at the end of 2000, it would be $281,956 (282x). Bought ten years before that, at the end of 2014, it would be $14,138 (14.1x).
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Amazon by the numbers
Started as an online bookstore in 1994 and listed in May 1997. The stock collapsed when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000–2001, then grew with e-commerce and cloud computing (AWS).
The ride wasn't smooth, though. Someone who bought at the end-of-1999 peak was down 86% by the end of 2001 and needed 8 years to get back to even. The ending looks easy; sitting through the middle was not.
$1,000 invested at the end of each year, valued at the end of 2024
| Bought | Value end of 2024 | Multiple | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| End of 1997 | $874,064 | 874x | +28.5% |
| End of 1998 | $81,951 | 82.0x | +18.5% |
| End of 1999 | $57,639 | 57.6x | +17.6% |
| End of 2000 | $281,956 | 282x | +26.5% |
| End of 2001 | $405,527 | 406x | +29.8% |
| End of 2002 | $232,282 | 232x | +28.1% |
| End of 2003 | $83,387 | 83.4x | +23.4% |
| End of 2004 | $99,070 | 99.1x | +25.8% |
| End of 2005 | $93,060 | 93.1x | +26.9% |
| End of 2006 | $111,196 | 111x | +29.9% |
| End of 2007 | $47,364 | 47.4x | +25.5% |
| End of 2008 | $85,566 | 85.6x | +32.1% |
| End of 2009 | $32,618 | 32.6x | +26.2% |
| End of 2010 | $24,377 | 24.4x | +25.6% |
| End of 2011 | $25,348 | 25.3x | +28.2% |
| End of 2012 | $17,490 | 17.5x | +26.9% |
| End of 2013 | $11,003 | 11.0x | +24.4% |
| End of 2014 | $14,138 | 14.1x | +30.3% |
| End of 2015 | $6,492 | 6.49x | +23.1% |
| End of 2016 | $5,851 | 5.85x | +24.7% |
| End of 2017 | $3,752 | 3.75x | +20.8% |
| End of 2018 | $2,921 | 2.92x | +19.6% |
| End of 2019 | $2,375 | 2.37x | +18.9% |
| End of 2020 | $1,347 | 1.35x | +7.7% |
| End of 2021 | $1,316 | 1.32x | +9.6% |
| End of 2022 | $2,612 | 2.61x | +61.6% |
| End of 2023 | $1,444 | 1.44x | +44.4% |
How it's calculated
- Returns use each year's last closing price, adjusted for stock splits with dividends reinvested. Read every figure as "bought at the end of one year, sold at the end of another."
- Taxes, trading fees and inflation are not included; all amounts are nominal US dollars.
- Data runs through the end of 2024. Past returns don't guarantee future results, and this page is not investment advice.
Looks easy in hindsight?
Knowing the ending, everyone would have bought Apple and Nvidia. Hide the names, show only the mood of the time, and it gets a lot harder. Travel through ten turning points since 1970 and invest for yourself.