If You'd Invested $1,000 Into Walmart's IPO, Here's How Much You'd Have After Its $1 Trillion Milestone

It happened without much fanfare. Earlier this month, retailer Walmart (WMT 1.30%) officially joined the trillion-dollar-market cap club, making it one of only 11 publicly traded companies able to make that claim. It took the company 64 years to get there, which is far longer than any of the other 10 needed.

Still, that’s impressive.

This begs the question: Just how rewarding have shares of this brick-and-mortar powerhouse been for patient investors? Here’s your answer.

Image source: Getty Images.

The sort of growth you’d expect from a trillion-dollar outfit

Sam Walton opened the world’s first Walmart store back in 1962, but the company wouldn’t actually go public for another eight years. By the time it made its initial public offering in 1970, the retailer was operating 38 stores, collectively doing $44 million in annual sales. Two years later, when the stock graduated from its over-the-counter status to an NYSE listing, the retailer’s 51 stores were generating annual revenue of nearly $80 million.

That was still just the beginning. Today, the company operates more than 10,800 locations, including 3,566 Walmart supercenters and 601 Sam’s Clubs in the United States alone. Last year it did $713.2 billion worth of business, with nearly 20% of that coming from outside the United States after Walmart launched its first international ventures in the mid-1990s.

Great, but what has this meant for investors?

The stock’s been through several splits since first being issued in 1970. A 100-share investment then would be 614,400 shares now. Said another way, adjusting for all those stock splits, Walmart stock’s price at its public offering would be a mere $0.002686, or 0.2% of the ticker’s current price near $125.

Perhaps the most practical way of illustrating this company’s growth, however, would be with some relatable dollar amounts. So, a $1,000 investment in Walmart at its 1970 IPO would be worth a little more than $47 million today. Wow! And that’s _not _factoring in any dividends dished out in the meantime, which of course would pump this position up to something well over $70 million.

Pick smart, and be patient

With the exception of a handful of older members of the Walton family, it’s unlikely any investor actually stuck with any position for the entirety of the stock’s 56-year existence (although never say never).

Expand

NASDAQ: WMT

Walmart

Today’s Change

(-1.30%) $-1.64

Current Price

$124.11

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$1.0T

Day’s Range

$124.11 - $127.32

52wk Range

$79.81 - $134.69

Volume

873K

Avg Vol

31M

Gross Margin

25.40%

Dividend Yield

0.75%

Nevertheless, it’s a testament to the power of patience, and sticking with a proven winner when the underlying company’s found the right formula for sustained success. While it would be short-sighted to ignore how several other retailers were_ also_ telling compelling growth stories during this stretch that obviously didn’t pan out – like Radio Shack, K-Mart, and Service Merchandise, just to name a few – even losing your entire investment on those names would have been more than offset by holding on to a stake in the one company that ultimately caused their demise.

Just don’t look for this same sort of growth from Walmart over the course of the coming 56 years. Most of this mega-retailer’s expansion opportunity has already been tapped. You want to keep your eyes peeled for the next Walmart-like company, which is likely to be something outside of the crowded brick-and-mortar retail arena.