If You'd Put $1,000 Into Apple Stock 20 Years Ago, Here's What You'd Have Today

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Apple (AAPL) stock took investors on quite a ride in 2025. Shares that were off as much as 30% for the year to date in early spring are now trading at record levels.

AAPL's 60% rally off its April nadir added about $1.6 trillion to the company's market cap in eight months. That's remarkable. Anyone who timed the bottom is probably feeling pretty good about their trading skills.

But truly long-term buy-and-hold Apple investors should be even more pleased. They've lived through this sort of volatility before – and have enjoyed incomparable returns over the past few decades – just by sitting on their hands.

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From January 1990 through December 2020, AAPL stock created $2.67 trillion in shareholder wealth, or an annualized dollar-weighted return of 23.5%, according to an analysis by Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

Indeed, per Bessembinder's findings, which account for a stock's increase in market cap adjusted for cash flows in and out of the business and other adjustments, Apple was the best stock in the world over those 30 years.

True, AAPL stock traded sideways for the first few years of the 21st century, but an explosion of innovation soon put an end to that.

Under the visionary leadership of the late Steve Jobs, Apple essentially reinvented itself for the mobile age, launching revolutionary gadgets such as the iPod, MacBook and iPad.

But what really set Apple on its course to becoming the world's third-largest publicly traded company – and one of hedge funds' favorite blue chip stocks – was the 2007 debut of the iPhone.

Today, Apple isn't just a purveyor of gadgets; it sells an entire ecosystem of personal consumer electronics and related services. And it's a sticky ecosystem at that.

No less an eminence than Warren Buffett has called the iPhone maker Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.B) "third business," noting Apple fans' fantastic brand loyalty as one reason for being all-in on the stock. (Apple accounts for roughly 23% of the value of the Berkshire Hathaway equity portfolio.)

True, Berkshire Hathaway cut its Apple stake sharply over the past year, but that was because the holding company believes that corporate taxes are likely to rise at some point in the future. Bulls needn't worry about Berkshire losing its taste for the stock. Warren Buffett adores Apple as much as ever.

Little wonder the iconic tech firm was tapped to become one of the elite 30 Dow Jones stocks. In 2015, Apple replaced AT&T (T) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The bottom line on Apple stock?

Over the past 20 years Apple stock generated an annualized total return (price change plus dividends) of 27.6%. By comparison, the S&P 500 delivered an annualized total return of 10.9% over the same span.

What does that look like on a brokerage statement? Check out the chart below and you'll see that if you invested $1,000 in Apple stock 20 years ago, it would today be worth about $130,000.

The same $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 would theoretically have turned into about $8,000 over the same period.

For those wondering if Apple stock is a buy at current levels, Wall Street mostly thinks so.

Of the 48 analysts covering AAPL surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 24 rate it at Strong Buy, five say Buy, 15 have it at Hold, three say it's a Sell and one has it at Strong Sell.

That works out to a consensus recommendation of Buy, albeit it with mixed conviction.

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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, SmartMoney, InvestorPlace, DailyFinance and other tier 1 national publications. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Consumer Reports and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among many other outlets. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about markets and macroeconomics.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade individual stocks or securities. He is eternally long the U.S equity market, primarily through tax-advantaged accounts.