What if you bought Plug Power in 2000?
US Tech · Hydrogen. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play0.0× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Plug Power at the start of 2000 would be worth about $2.14 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
Plug Power makes hydrogen fuel cells, and it has been the next big thing for most of its public life. It listed in late 1999 and rode the clean-energy frenzy of early 2000 to a valuation that, adjusted for a later reverse split, looks almost fictional next to everything since. The stock then spent a decade grinding lower as the promised fuel-cell revolution kept slipping, until shares traded for around a dollar in the early 2010s.
The company found a real niche powering warehouse forklifts for customers such as Walmart and Amazon, and in 2020 the hydrogen and ESG wave sent the stock up many times over in a matter of months. Reality returned quickly. Losses persisted, the company built expensive green-hydrogen production plants, issued a going-concern warning in 2023, and raised money repeatedly by selling new shares, steadily diluting existing holders. Government support, including a large federal loan guarantee, helped keep projects alive. Over a quarter century the technology advanced considerably; the share count advanced faster than the per-share value.
The lesson: A company that funds persistent losses by issuing new shares can grow its business while shrinking what each existing share is actually worth.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $700 | $2.14 | $4,626 | 0.0× |
| 2003 | $50.00 | $30.00 | $7,727 | 0.0× |
| 2005 | $60.00 | $25.00 | $5,763 | 0.0× |
| 2007 | $40.00 | $37.50 | $4,789 | 0.0× |
| 2008 | $30.00 | $50.00 | $4,626 | 0.1× |
| 2010 | $5.00 | $300 | $6,071 | 0.3× |
| 2012 | $1.00 | $1,500 | $5,312 | 1.5× |
| 2015 | $3.00 | $500 | $3,301 | 0.5× |
| 2018 | $2.30 | $652 | $2,519 | 0.7× |
| 2020 | $3.30 | $455 | $2,092 | 0.5× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2012, turning $1,000 into $1,500. The S&P 500 from that same year: $5,312.
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. Plug Power is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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