Could You Retire Today If You Had Bought Amazon Stock 10 Years Ago?
Written by
Vance Cariaga
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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Trying to retire off of a single 10-year stock investment usually requires a pretty substantial amount of money to begin with. That’s the case even for high-flying stocks like Amazon, whose share price has risen more than 750% over the past decade.
If you had invested $10,000 in Amazon 10 years ago, that investment would now be worth about $85,250. Earning a $75,000-plus profit in less than a decade is an excellent return — but it’s not enough to retire on.
Could you retire today on an Amazon stock purchase a decade ago? The answer is yes — as long as your initial investment was big enough.
Keep reading to find out how much money you would have needed to invest to retire comfortably.
How Much Should You Save for Retirement?
Your retirement savings goal depends on a lot of different factors, from your age and location to your lifestyle and financial situation.
But if you’re looking for a general target, Fidelity recommends saving at least eight times your salary by age 60 and 10 times your salary by age 67. That means you should aim to have about nine times your salary saved up if you’ve reached the traditional retirement age of 65.
Specific savings amounts will depend on how much a person earns — and that figure varies widely by profession and job. The median income for full-time workers in the U.S. is $1,196 a week or $62,192 a year, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Using the BLS data and Fidelity formula, the typical American should have roughly $560,000 saved for retirement at age 65. But most people fall well short of that.
Federal Reserve research found that the average retirement savings for Americans ages 65 to 74 was $200,000 as of 2022, the most recent year data are available.
A more realistic retirement goal is somewhere between what you should save and what most people save. In the case of the Fidelity formula and the Federal Reserve data, that figure would be $380,000 — the midway point between $560,000 and $200,000.
Retiring Off Your Amazon Investment
Here’s a look at how Amazon’s stock price has grown over the past 10 years, according to its Yahoo Finance stock chart:
- September 2015 closing price (split adjusted): $25.59 per share
- September 25, 2025 closing price: $218.15
Amazon had a 20-for-1 stock split in June of 2022. The September 2015 price listed above reflects that split.
If you aimed to earn enough money from your Amazon investment 10 years ago to retire today, you would have needed to invest about $45,000. Here’s a breakdown:
- September 2015 closing price: $25.59 per share
- Number of shares with $45,000 investment: 1,759
- September 25, 2025 closing price: $218.15
- Current value: $383,725
As the above graph shows, you’d be just above the $380,000 retirement benchmark based on your initial $45,000 Amazon investment. Because the online retail giant does not pay dividends, your return only includes the stock price gain.
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