The alchemy of long-term investment in good businesses has the ability to build enormous wealth over time, even from fairly modest beginnings. Walmart, the US retailing giant that over many decades transformed the way Americans shop, is a great case in point of patient capital accumulation. If you had put $1,000 into Walmart stock 20 years ago, your investment savvy would be richly rewarded today.
Walmart’s share price journey since 2005
In 2005, Walmart’s average price per share changed at around $10.86 per share. By then, the company already dominated US retail sales, but still expanded its global presence and honing its ability to conduct business on the internet as competition in an emerging digital age persisted unabated.
Flash forward to March 2025, and Walmart stock is trading at approximately $87.49 as of March 17, 2025. This is an astonishing gain of approximately 705% over the past 20 years. The company has been able to survive changes in customers’ behavior, economic recessions, and stiff competition from e-commerce giants to remain in the leadership position in the market.
Calculating your investment returns
If you had put $1,000 in Walmart stock in 2005 at the then-average price of $10.86, you would have purchased approximately 92 shares. At today’s price of $87.49 a share, your initial investment would be worth approximately $8,049. That is a fine return on investment, demonstrating how patient capital can grow quite nicely over two decades.
The role of dividends in overall returns
The above calculation considers only the appreciation in share price, although Walmart has made regular dividends to its shareholders that greatly enhanced total returns. In 2005, Walmart distributed an annual rate of $0.52 as a dividend. With estimates as of 2025, the dividend has grown to around $0.92 per share.
If you had reinvested those dividends over the 20-year period, your return would be simply staggering. Dividend reinvestment lets shareholders buy extra shares with dividend payments, creating a compounding effect that grows wealth over long periods of time.
Walmart’s performance through market cycles
Over the last twenty years, Walmart has ridden out some of the most difficult economic times. The firm showed incredible fortitude during the 2008 financial downturn, with its stock value even rising from $12.87 in 2008 to $13.21 by 2010. In the same way, Walmart rode out the COVID-19 pandemic well, with its stock price growing from $40.43 in 2020 to $44.88 in 2021.
This performance across market fluctuations is testimony to the stability of Walmart as an investment, especially during economic downturns when consumers are looking for value retailers.
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