What if you bought Etsy in 2018?
Hype · Marketplace. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play3.0× · S&P 500 same money: $2,519
$1,000 in Etsy at the start of 2018 would be worth about $3,000 today — 3.0 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Etsy is an online marketplace for handmade, vintage and quirky goods, from knitted hats to custom jewellery. Founded in Brooklyn in 2005, it went public in 2015 as a certified B Corporation with a strong social mission, but the stock fell well below its IPO price as costs mounted. In 2017 activist investors pushed for change, Josh Silverman became CEO, staff was cut and the company focused on growth and margins.
The pandemic made Etsy a star when sellers turned to handmade face masks and stuck-at-home shoppers browsed for everything else. Sales and profits jumped, and the share price rose to well over $250 in late 2021. Then growth faded as shopping returned to normal and competition from Temu and Shein intensified. Etsy had bought fashion resale app Depop and musical gear marketplace Reverb, but later sold both. Sellers complained about rising fees, and the stock fell sharply from its peak, yet stayed well above the 2018 level.
The lesson: A pandemic boom can pull years of growth forward, and a valuation built on that pull-forward has a long way to fall when demand normalises.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $20.00 | $3,000 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $45.00 | $1,333 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2018, turning $1,000 into $3,000. The S&P 500 from that same year: $2,519.
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. Etsy is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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