A recent analysis of some of today’s top companies has revealed what a $1,000 investment would be worth today, had that investment been made a decade ago. The experiment was run by HowMuch, with the assistance of some MSN number crunching.

Investing Before the Great Recession

The experiment took the investments back before the Great Recession and assumed that the original amount would have been left in place for the entire time, throughout the market downturn. In this little game, it assumed that a person had $15,000 to invest into fifteen different companies. Knowing some of the American favorites in 2007, the investments were made “back in time” and the numbers were crunched to determined how much each of those investments would now be worth in 2017.
One very important assumption was made in the tallying of the investment figures in this time traveling scenario. Any dividends paid out in cash throughout the decade were not reinvested into the organization through the purchase of additional stock. This means that capital gains taxes will have had to be paid on any dividends while the stock was still held unless they were added to an IRA or other form of tax-sheltered account.
This difference between annualized growth and dividends is important in stock investments when comparing older companies such as GE with newer ones like Netflix.

What Would Your $1,000 Be Worth Today?

Surprisingly, only one of the companies would have led to a loss if the investments were sold today. That was GE (General Electric), which would have seen its value plummet to $490. On the other end of the scale was Netflix, which would have skyrocketed in value to a tremendous $51,966.
Other results included:

• $12,398 for Amazon
• $6,228 for Apple
• $4,687 for Starbucks
• $3,319 for Nike
• $2,992 for Alphabet
• $2,824 for Disney
• $2,793 for McDonald’s
• $2,374 for Mylan
• $2,260 for Microsoft
• $2,185 for Fedex
• $1,931 for Walmart
• $1,489 for Coca-Cola
• $1,425 for Pfizer

The top performers illustrate a considerable shift in the American economy, particularly with the outstanding Netflix results. That company was already saying that it could create its own content back in 2007. While this led many people to shy away as it seemed impossible that the company could compete against cable television, it’s more than clear that investors with the vision to recognize the potential in the streaming service were the ones who saw the biggest payoff.