What if you bought Deckers (UGG) in 2005?
US Consumer · Apparel. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play76.9× · S&P 500 same money: $5,763
$1,000 in Deckers (UGG) at the start of 2005 would be worth about $76,923 today — 76.9 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Deckers Outdoor started with Teva sandals and bought a small Australian sheepskin boot brand called UGG in 1995. For years UGG was a niche surf product, then in the early 2000s celebrities made it a fashion phenomenon, and the stock soared. From a split-adjusted price around a dollar in 2005, it multiplied several times by 2008 as the boots became ubiquitous.
Fashion fads are fragile, and from 2008 to the mid-2010s UGG's growth faltered amid shifting tastes, warm winters and high sheepskin costs, and the stock spent years going nowhere. The quieter story was a 2013 acquisition of Hoka One One, a small French running shoe maker known for its oversized cushioned soles. Hoka gradually went from oddity among ultramarathoners to a mainstream running and walking shoe, growing into a business that rivaled UGG in size. Combined with a revived UGG, it drove the stock dramatically higher after 2020. Deckers did a six-for-one split in 2024, and its shares later fell back as Hoka's growth slowed.
The lesson: Small, overlooked acquisitions can matter more than a famous flagship brand; a company's next growth engine may be hiding in its footnotes.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | $1.30 | $76,923 | $5,763 | 76.9× |
| 2007 | $3.80 | $26,316 | $4,789 | 26.3× |
| 2008 | $8.50 | $11,765 | $4,626 | 11.8× |
| 2010 | $6.30 | $15,873 | $6,071 | 15.9× |
| 2012 | $5.50 | $18,182 | $5,312 | 18.2× |
| 2015 | $15.00 | $6,667 | $3,301 | 6.7× |
| 2018 | $13.00 | $7,692 | $2,519 | 7.7× |
| 2020 | $28.00 | $3,571 | $2,092 | 3.6× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2005, turning $1,000 into $76,923. The S&P 500 from that same year: $5,763.
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. Deckers (UGG) is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
Play Sixty-40More in US Consumer
- What if you bought Walmart?
- What if you bought Home Depot?
- What if you bought Costco?
- What if you bought Target?
- What if you bought Best Buy?
- What if you bought Starbucks?