What if you bought Costco in 1990?
US Consumer · Retail. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play190.0× · S&P 500 same money: $19,429
$1,000 in Costco at the start of 1990 would be worth about $190,000 today — 190.0 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Costco runs warehouse clubs that sell a deliberately narrow range of goods in bulk at razor-thin markups, and makes much of its profit from annual membership fees. It merged with Price Club, the format's inventor, in 1993. The business is almost aggressively boring: no sales, few brands per category, a hot dog and soda combo whose price stayed at a dollar fifty for decades as a matter of principle.
The stock was not always serene. It lost a large chunk of its value between 2000 and 2003 after an earnings disappointment ended its late-1990s run, then spent the following years doing what Costco does: opening warehouses, keeping members renewing at very high rates, and occasionally paying large special dividends. It held up unusually well in 2008, when shoppers traded down. From 2020 the market rewarded that consistency lavishly, pushing the shares to a valuation more often seen in software companies. By 2026 the stock traded around three times its early-2020 price, with membership fees raised in 2024 for the first time in years.
The lesson: Customer loyalty built by visibly refusing to squeeze customers can become a moat, though the market eventually charges a steep price for owning it.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $5.00 | $190,000 | $19,429 | 190.0× |
| 1995 | $7.00 | $135,714 | $14,783 | 135.7× |
| 2000 | $45.00 | $21,111 | $4,626 | 21.1× |
| 2003 | $28.00 | $33,929 | $7,727 | 33.9× |
| 2005 | $48.00 | $19,792 | $5,763 | 19.8× |
| 2007 | $53.00 | $17,925 | $4,789 | 17.9× |
| 2008 | $70.00 | $13,571 | $4,626 | 13.6× |
| 2010 | $59.00 | $16,102 | $6,071 | 16.1× |
| 2012 | $83.00 | $11,446 | $5,312 | 11.4× |
| 2015 | $141 | $6,738 | $3,301 | 6.7× |
| 2018 | $187 | $5,080 | $2,519 | 5.1× |
| 2020 | $295 | $3,220 | $2,092 | 3.2× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 1990, turning $1,000 into $190,000. The S&P 500 from that same year: $19,429.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. Costco is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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