What if you bought Thermo Fisher in 2000?
US Health · Tools. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play33.3× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Thermo Fisher at the start of 2000 would be worth about $33,333 today — 33.3 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
Thermo Fisher Scientific was formed in 2006 when instrument maker Thermo Electron merged with Fisher Scientific, the lab supply distributor. The result sells nearly everything a laboratory needs, from mass spectrometers and reagents to pipette tips and freezers, plus outsourced manufacturing and clinical trial services. It is the classic picks-and-shovels play on life sciences: whoever wins the race to a new drug, someone probably bought the equipment from Thermo.
Under Marc Casper, CEO from 2009, the company kept acquiring: Life Technologies in 2014, contract manufacturer Patheon in 2017 and clinical research company PPD in 2021, among many smaller deals. The stock rose steadily through the 2010s and jumped in 2020 as Covid testing and vaccine production generated huge demand for its products. That bump faded in 2022 and 2023 as pandemic revenue fell and biotech funding tightened, but the long-term trajectory has remained firmly upward. From 2000, it is one of the best performers in healthcare without ever depending on a single drug approval.
The lesson: Selling picks and shovels to an entire industry lets you benefit from its growth without having to predict which individual company will win.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $15.00 | $33,333 | $4,626 | 33.3× |
| 2003 | $16.00 | $31,250 | $7,727 | 31.2× |
| 2005 | $30.00 | $16,667 | $5,763 | 16.7× |
| 2007 | $45.00 | $11,111 | $4,789 | 11.1× |
| 2008 | $58.00 | $8,621 | $4,626 | 8.6× |
| 2010 | $48.00 | $10,417 | $6,071 | 10.4× |
| 2012 | $45.00 | $11,111 | $5,312 | 11.1× |
| 2015 | $125 | $4,000 | $3,301 | 4.0× |
| 2018 | $190 | $2,632 | $2,519 | 2.6× |
| 2020 | $325 | $1,538 | $2,092 | 1.5× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2000, turning $1,000 into $33,333. The S&P 500 from that same year: $4,626.
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. Thermo Fisher is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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