What if you bought Lululemon in 2008?
US Consumer · Apparel. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play8.7× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Lululemon at the start of 2008 would be worth about $8,696 today — 8.7 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Lululemon was founded in Vancouver in 1998 by Chip Wilson, who correctly guessed that women would pay premium prices for yoga clothes that looked good outside the studio. It went public in 2007, and despite a dip during the 2008 crisis, the stock rose strongly as the brand pioneered athleisure, eventually expanding into menswear and international markets.
The road was bumpy. In 2013 it recalled black yoga pants that turned out to be see-through, and Wilson's subsequent comments blaming some women's bodies caused a backlash; he left the board in 2015. Its chief executive resigned in 2018 for conduct reasons. Under Calvin McDonald the brand grew rapidly, and pandemic-era home exercise and comfortable clothing sent the stock to record highs. A roughly half-billion-dollar purchase of the at-home fitness company Mirror in 2020 was later written down. Competition from Alo Yoga, Vuori and others, along with slowing US sales, weighed on shares into 2026, leaving them below their early-2020 price.
The lesson: Premium pricing relies on brand desirability; when competitors offer a similar status signal, a premium brand's growth and margins can erode quickly.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | $23.00 | $8,696 | $4,626 | 8.7× |
| 2010 | $15.00 | $13,333 | $6,071 | 13.3× |
| 2012 | $47.00 | $4,255 | $5,312 | 4.3× |
| 2015 | $58.00 | $3,448 | $3,301 | 3.4× |
| 2018 | $78.00 | $2,564 | $2,519 | 2.6× |
| 2020 | $232 | $862 | $2,092 | 0.9× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2010, turning $1,000 into $13,333. The S&P 500 from that same year: $6,071.
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. Lululemon is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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