3 Stocks That Turned $1,000 into $1 Million

If you can identify rare stocks in advance that can turn $1,000 into $1 million, you won’t have to do much to invest for the rest of your life. But since no one has a crystal ball, diversification is just as important as choosing the best stocks. There are all kinds of factors that can cause any given stock to plummet or skyrocket, and you never know which factors will sustain your day (or week, month, or year).

The difficult part of investing is not necessarily raising funds to invest or worrying about the company’s financial statements. Often the hardest part is maintaining the courage to continue investing even in difficult times and letting the magic of compound growth work.

consider Amazon (AMZN -0.17%), walmart (WMT 0.83%)and home depot (HD -0.55%). Each of these stocks has had big declines at times, but $1,000 invested in either stock when it went public would be worth more than $1 million today.

Amazon in e-commerce

Amazon’s overall returns were the highest in stock market history. If you invested $1,000 in Amazon stock at the time of its IPO, you would have almost $1.9 million today.

AMZN data from YCharts.

As you can see from the chart, this includes a major recession in 2022 and other challenges on the road. What’s happening today? Amazon is still reporting double-digit growth rates, which is truly amazing considering the size of the base it’s building. Moreover, in addition to the strong potential of its core e-commerce business, it still has incredible opportunities in artificial intelligence.

The world’s largest retailer

Walmart is no longer a growth stock, but while Amazon appears to be growing fast enough to acquire the world’s largest retailer, the e-commerce powerhouse hasn’t been able to dislodge Walmart from the top spot. The discount chain is still growing at a mid-single-digit rate, which is truly impressive considering its sheer size. Walmart has been a public company for much longer than Amazon, and if you invested $1,000 in Walmart in 1970 and had dividends reinvested, it would be worth more than $4.6 million today.

WMT Total Return Level Data from YCharts

While it seems likely that Amazon will one day usurp the throne, Walmart has been doing everything it can to generate growth and maintain its lead. It’s joining the streaming space to leverage its advertising business and fine-tune its offering in various locations to better meet local demand. In the end, it may lose its title as the world’s largest retailer, but it will not lose its status as an excellent company. Plus, it pays increasingly larger dividends.

Millionaire Maker That Will Surprise You

You might expect Amazon and Walmart to be on this list, but you might be surprised to learn that Home Depot is here. After all, it’s a niche retailer. But if you invested $1,000 in the stock early on, your Home Depot holdings would be worth a lot more now than if you invested in Amazon or Walmart’s IPO.

HD Total Return Level Data from YCharts

Home Depot is a great business, and today it enjoys a strong moat thanks to its investments in technology and its dominant position in its niche market. We’re feeling some pressure from the current macroeconomic environment, and after some ups and downs, the stock price is pretty flat so far this year, so now could be a good time to buy. Competitive and growing dividends are reinvested, accounting for $12 million of total returns.

Can it still make you a millionaire?

Given their current massive scale, it would be nearly impossible for these three companies to increase in value by more than 1,000 times again. So investing $1,000 in this company today won’t make you a millionaire. But they all have great business models and have proven that they can still create a lot of additional value for shareholders over time. Not every stock will make you a millionaire, but diversifying your portfolio can help you become one.

I want to end by making it clear that this is an exercise in realizing the value of long-term investments. Most individual investors can’t invest in any company at an IPO, and very few stocks have the potential to turn $1,000 into $1 million. However, investors who can start early, invest in great companies, and stay invested for the long term so that growth can compound over time can certainly create wealth and become a millionaire.