$10,000 invested in Walmart when it first traded in 1974 is worth $317 million today. Home Depot: $168 million. Microsoft: $64 million. These are the returns of a lifetime — the actual numbers behind the most iconic American stocks.
Every investor dreams of finding the next great stock. But the data reveals something humbling: the greatest stocks have already been identified. They are the household names that everyone knows — Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, Nike, Home Depot. The challenge was never identification. The challenge was holding. Holding through crashes, recessions, management crises, and the thousand small reasons the human mind invents to sell.
Using split-adjusted prices from the first available trading date through March 2026, we calculated what $10,000 invested in each iconic stock would be worth today. The numbers are staggering.
Walmart is the all-time champion — and it is not even close. $10,000 invested in Walmart in November 1974 is worth $317.7 million today. That is a 31,768x return over 51 years. Home Depot, which went public in 1981, is second at $168 million. Microsoft, public since 1986, turned $10,000 into $64.4 million in 40 years.
Nvidia’s $46.7 million is remarkable because it was achieved in just 27 years (IPO in 1999). Its annualized return dwarfs every other stock on the list. Apple’s $25.5 million, Oracle’s $30.2 million, and Amazon’s $21.5 million round out the cohort of stocks that turned $10,000 into eight-figure fortunes.
| Ticker | First Date | First Price | Current | $10K Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WMT | Nov 1974 | $0.004 | $120.72 | $317.7M |
| HD | Sep 1981 | $0.020 | $330.90 | $168.0M |
| MSFT | Mar 1986 | $0.060 | $383.21 | $64.4M |
| NVDA | Jan 1999 | $0.038 | $175.68 | $46.7M |
| ORCL | Mar 1986 | $0.051 | $154.34 | $30.2M |
| AAPL | Dec 1980 | $0.099 | $251.49 | $25.5M |
| UNH | Oct 1984 | $0.112 | $269.54 | $24.0M |
| AMZN | May 1997 | $0.098 | $210.14 | $21.5M |
| CSCO | Feb 1990 | $0.050 | $78.82 | $15.7M |
| INTC | Nov 1974 | $0.028 | $44.01 | $15.6M |
| ADBE | Aug 1986 | $0.198 | $247.64 | $12.5M |
| BA | Nov 1974 | $0.213 | $198.41 | $9.3M |
| LLY | Nov 1974 | $1.110 | $910.55 | $8.2M |
| MCD | Nov 1974 | $0.401 | $308.47 | $7.7M |
| XOM | Nov 1974 | $0.260 | $161.13 | $6.2M |
| KO | Nov 1974 | $0.138 | $75.11 | $5.4M |
| NKE | Dec 1980 | $0.099 | $52.71 | $5.4M |
| CAT | Nov 1974 | $1.670 | $701.70 | $4.2M |
| JPM | Nov 1974 | $1.080 | $289.91 | $2.7M |
| TSLA | Jun 2010 | $1.590 | $380.85 | $2.4M |
Several patterns emerge from the data. The oldest stocks are not the best performers. ExxonMobil, with data going back to 1974, returned $6.2 million on $10K — excellent in absolute terms but modest compared to Walmart ($317M) from the same starting year. Intel, also from 1974, returned $15.6M. The companies that delivered the most extreme returns were the ones that combined both longevity and sustained hypergrowth — Walmart growing from 78 stores to 10,500, Microsoft growing from a startup to a $3 trillion company.
The tech stocks achieved comparable or superior returns in less time. Nvidia turned $10K into $46.7M in 27 years. Amazon did $21.5M in 29 years. Apple did $25.5M in 45 years. The annualized returns of the tech cohort (30%+ for Nvidia) dwarf even the legendary returns of Walmart (22% annualized).
The most underappreciated names on the list may be UnitedHealth ($24M from 1984), Adobe ($12.5M from 1986), and Eli Lilly ($8.2M from 1974). These are not companies that typically feature in “greatest stocks of all time” lists, but their long-term returns rival or exceed many of the household names.
The returns of a lifetime belong to the patient. $10,000 in Walmart in 1974 survived the 1987 crash, the 1990 recession, the dot-com bust, the financial crisis, the pandemic, and a hundred smaller setbacks — and is now worth $317 million. The same $10,000 in Microsoft in 1986 weathered the antitrust trial, the lost decade of 2000–2013, and a complete strategic overhaul under Nadella — and is worth $64 million.
The lesson across 101 years of market cap history is simple. Great companies are easy to identify — they are the names everyone knows. The hard part is holding. The compounding only works if you let it.