If You Invested $1,000 in Amazon 10 Years Ago
If you invested $1,000 in Amazon at the close on 12 October 2016, it was worth $6,223 at the close on 12 October 2026. Over five years the same $1,000 became $1,598, and over one year $1,179.
What your money in Amazon became
Type any amount. Every result uses actual Amazon closing prices through 12 October 2026.
Every line is the 12 October 2026 close divided by the close on the start date, from Yahoo Finance’s split-adjusted prices, and Nasdaq.com’s closes return the same values. Yahoo’s record shows no Amazon dividend in these years, so price only is the whole answer. Fees, taxes and inflation are not taken off, and the numbers do not update.
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If you invested $1,000 in Amazon at the close on 12 October 2016, it was worth $6,223 at the close on 12 October 2026.
That is about 20% a year, and it hides a long pause. From July 2021 to April 2024 Amazon went nowhere for its holders, and on 39 trading days between November 2022 and March 2023 it closed at less than half its old high. The same $1,000 in SPY, a fund that tracks the S&P 500, ended at $3,641.
| Put in $1,000 on | Amazon on 12 Oct 2026 | SPY on 12 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct 2025 (1 year) | $1,179 | $1,174 |
| 12 Oct 2021 (5 years) | $1,598 | $1,794 |
| 12 Oct 2016 (10 years) | $6,223 | $3,641 |
How it is calculated, and the 20-for-1 split
Divide the end close by the start close. Amazon closed at $259.53 on 12 October 2026. In split-adjusted terms it closed at $41.7045 on 12 October 2016. The ratio is 6.22, so $1,000 became $6,223.
The 2016 screen price was about $834. Amazon split its shares 20-for-1 on 6 June 2022, the date shown both in Yahoo Finance’s split record and on StockSplitHistory.com. Adjusted data divides every earlier price by 20. A 2016 buyer got about 1.2 shares for $1,000; after the split those count as about 24.
There is no dividend line. Yahoo’s dividend record lists no Amazon payout in these ten years, so price change is the entire return.
The one-year window opens on 13 October 2025, the Monday after 12 October, because markets were shut that Sunday.
The 1,008 days below the July 2021 high
On 8 July 2021 Amazon closed at $186.57. The 2016 stake was then worth $4,474.
Then it fell for a year and a half. The low close came on 28 December 2022 at $81.82. The 2016 stake was down to $1,962, a 56.1% fall. Getting back from a 56.1% fall takes a gain of about 128%.
It took until 11 April 2024 to close above $186.57 again. That is 1,008 calendar days. On that date the stake was worth $4,533, barely above where it stood in July 2021.
SPY kept moving in the meantime. $1,000 put into SPY on 8 July 2021 was worth $1,202 on 11 April 2024. An index holder gained about 20% while the Amazon holder spent almost three years getting back to even.
It was not Amazon’s only stall. From a high on 4 September 2018 it took 518 days, until 4 February 2020, to set a new one. From 2 September 2020 it took 307 days, until 6 July 2021. After the start day, only 170 of the decade’s 2,513 trading days closed at a new high, on both Yahoo’s and Nasdaq.com’s prices.
A worked example through the flat years
Say you put $5,000 into Amazon at the close on 12 October 2020. The split-adjusted close was $172.15.
Three years later you had less. On 12 October 2023 the close was $132.33. Your $5,000 was worth about $3,844. At the December 2022 low it had been about $2,376, down 52.5%.
By 12 October 2026 the close was $259.53. Divide: $259.53 ÷ $172.15 = 1.51. Your $5,000 became about $7,538. Type 5,000 into the calculator and use the 10-year line to compare with a 2016 start.
Amazon at each October
Every row uses the final close on or before that year’s 12 October, starting from $1,000 on 12 October 2016.
| Date | $1,000 in Amazon | $1,000 in SPY |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Oct 2016 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| 12 Oct 2017 | $1,200 | $1,192 |
| 12 Oct 2018 | $2,144 | $1,291 |
| 11 Oct 2019 | $2,076 | $1,386 |
| 12 Oct 2020 | $4,128 | $1,649 |
| 12 Oct 2021 | $3,893 | $2,029 |
| 12 Oct 2022 | $2,707 | $1,668 |
| 12 Oct 2023 | $3,173 | $2,029 |
| 11 Oct 2024 | $4,528 | $2,712 |
| 10 Oct 2025 | $5,188 | $3,056 |
| 12 Oct 2026 | $6,223 | $3,641 |
Three yearly rows in a row came in under the October 2020 value. Someone who checked once a year saw $4,128, then $3,893, then $2,707, then $3,173 before the stake moved ahead for good.
The original data and the dashed line
The numbers come from 2,513 daily Amazon and SPY closes, 12 October 2016 to 12 October 2026, downloaded from Yahoo Finance on 13 October 2026. Nasdaq.com’s Amazon closes for the same 2,513 days agree with Yahoo’s to within 0.06%, and its July 2021 high, December 2022 low and 1,008-day wait are the same.
The daily table, with both closes, the value of $1,000 and the fall from the last high, is published as the Amazon $1,000 data file.
The chart draws the 2016 stake every day, with a dashed line at the July 2021 high of $4,474 running until the day the stake finally closed above it.
The gap under the dashed line is the cost of waiting. None of that time shows up in the $6,223 answer at the top of the page.
When it fails: the middle years
A ten-year answer skips the middle. A holder who needed the money in late 2022 got less than half of the 2021 value. The headline only describes someone who could leave the money alone for the full decade.
The start date was picked after the fact. Choosing a famous company that went up is survivorship bias. The same exercise run on a retailer that shrank would not get a page.
The peak buyer did far worse. $1,000 bought at the 8 July 2021 close was worth $1,391 on 12 October 2026, after falling to about $439 at the December 2022 low.
Nothing here allows for inflation, fees or tax. Prices in 2026 are higher than in 2016, so each dollar of the $6,223 buys less; the inflation-adjusted return calculator removes that.
The past is not a forecast. None of these numbers says where Amazon goes next or whether to buy it.
Related pages on falls and splits
How much a stock must gain to undo a fall is worked out by the drawdown recovery calculator. The drawdown page explains the measure behind the 56.1% figure.
To see why the 2016 price on this page looks so low, read how a stock split changes the share count but not the money.
Look at the flat years before the total. A stock can do well over ten years and still give you three years with nothing to show. Plan your holding period so that a long flat stretch would not force you to sell.
— Michael Whitman
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