If You'd Invested $1,000 in Nvidia Stock 10 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Today
Key Points
Nvidia's leading position as the premier provider of graphics-processing units has resulted in tremendous returns for its shareholders.
The company’s ongoing success is solely dependent on the AI secular trend holding up.
- 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), there's no company that has defined this technological age quite like Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). Its powerful graphics processing units help run the data centers that support AI training and inference. Nvidia's leading industry position has made it a monster investment.
If you'd invested $1,000 in this AI stock 10 years ago, here's how much you'd have today.
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Nvidia's shares produced a total return of 21,690% in 10 years (as of March 20). This phenomenal gain would've grown a $1,000 investment into almost $218,000 today. This might be the best-performing stock of the last decade.
And the rise hasn't been driven by improving market sentiment. Nvidia's price-to-earnings ratio expanded by just 16% over the trailing-10-year period.
This means that shareholders have benefited mainly from fundamental gains. Nvidia's growth has been exceptional. In fiscal 2016, it reported $614 million in net income. In fiscal 2026 (ended Jan. 25), that figure ballooned more than 19,000% to $120 billion. All credit goes to the AI boom, which has resulted in companies allocating massive amounts of capital to secure the needed hardware to build computing infrastructure.
Looking ahead, it's obvious that Nvidia is heavily dependent on economywide AI bullishness continuing. That sentiment will support greater investments in the space, which will push further revenue and profit gains for the business.
Should you buy stock in Nvidia right now?
Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $495,179!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,058,743!*
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*Stock Advisor returns as of March 23, 2026.
Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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