By Boluwatife Oshadiya | September 3, 2026
KEY POINTS
• Walmart tops the list — a $1,000 investment at its 1970 IPO is now worth over $38.9 million after 12 stock splits
• Coca-Cola has outperformed every tech giant on this list, turning a $40 IPO share into 9,216 shares now worth about $830,000
• Nvidia’s IPO price was $12 in 1999 — the same year the dot-com bubble was inflating — and it still only ranks fifth, behind McDonald’s
• The study tracked 18 well-known companies from their IPO date, accounting for every stock split since, to compute true investor returns
• SpaceX — now 11 weeks into public trading — and OpenAI’s pending listing have renewed attention on which IPOs actually reward patience over decades
MAIN STORY
With SpaceX now 11 weeks into public trading — and OpenAI’s listing still ahead — a new August 2026 study by online trading platform Taurex has ranked the landmark IPOs that have delivered the most money to early investors when every stock split since listing is properly accounted for. The findings upend several widely-held assumptions about which companies have created the most wealth.
The research tracked 18 well-known publicly listed companies from their original IPO date through to August 26, 2026. For each company, Taurex recorded the official offer price on the first day of trading, then calculated every stock split since, and multiplied those ratios to determine how many shares one IPO share has become today. Companies were then ranked by what a $1,000 stake bought at the offer price would now be worth — revealing which ones rewarded early investors the most.
The methodology matters. Most headline return figures for iconic stocks divide today’s price by the IPO offer price and stop there. That approach systematically undercounts the returns of companies that have split their stock many times, which are disproportionately the companies that have grown most aggressively over the longest periods. Walmart, for instance, routinely appears unremarkable on standard return tables — but once its 12 stock splits are factored in, it becomes the single most profitable IPO in United States history.
Here is a look at the ten companies that delivered the biggest split-adjusted returns since their IPO.
1. Walmart Inc. — $38,852,422
IPO Date: October 1, 1970 | IPO Offer Price: $16.50 | Cumulative Split Factor: 6,144x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $38,852,422
Walmart has made early investors more money than any other major IPO in American history. The retailer went public in October 1970 at $16.50 a share when it was operating just 38 stores and generating $44 million in annual sales — a fraction of the $713 billion business it is today. Twelve stock splits later, that same original share has multiplied into 6,144 shares, worth around $641,000 at current prices. Spread $1,000 across that day’s offer price, and the stake now sits at roughly $38.9 million, a return of 38,852 times the initial investment.
What makes this result unusual is that Walmart rarely appears in rankings like this one. The reason is simple: conventional return tables divide today’s price by the 1970 offer price and produce a figure around 532%, which sounds impressive but is wrong by a factor of thousands. The correct number — accounting for twelve splits spread across five decades, including three in the 1970s, five in the 1980s, two in the 1990s, and one in the 2020s — is closer to 3,885,000%.
The company’s first split arrived just one year after its IPO, in May 1971 — a reflection of its rapid growth and management’s commitment to keeping shares accessible to everyday investors, in the same spirit as its always-low-prices retail proposition. That philosophy of accessibility has compounded dramatically over 56 years.
2. The Coca-Cola Company — $20,754,432
IPO Date: September 5, 1919 | IPO Offer Price: $40.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 9,216x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $20,754,432
Coca-Cola’s 107 years on the market put it ahead of every tech giant on this list. The drinks maker listed on the New York Stock Exchange in September 1919 at $40 per share, at a time when the United States was still recovering from the first World War. Eleven stock splits later — seven of them two-for-one, two of them three-for-one — a single 1919 share is now 9,216 shares worth approximately $847,000 at Coca-Cola’s August 2026 price of $91.99, excluding dividends.
A $1,000 investment at the IPO would now be worth roughly $20.75 million — more than double Nvidia and six times more than Apple. Coca-Cola has not announced any plans for another stock split, though its shares have climbed into the $90s, significantly above the $75 level at which it last divided its stock in 2012. That trajectory could make another split plausible given the company’s long history of keeping shares accessible to individual investors.
The brand’s resilience through history is as remarkable as its numbers. During the Great Depression, Coca-Cola kept its prices at five cents a bottle and continued advertising even as rivals pulled back — a discipline that reinforced customer loyalty through the one period most damaging to consumer brands. Legendary investor Warren Buffett holds 400 million shares of the company through Berkshire Hathaway, a stake now worth over $25 billion.
3. The Home Depot, Inc. — $9,535,377
IPO Date: September 22, 1981 | IPO Offer Price: $12.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 341.71875x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $9,535,377
Home Depot listed on Nasdaq in September 1981 at $12 a share — the lowest offer price in the study. Today that share trades at $334.85, and thirteen splits mean one 1981 share is now 341.7 shares. A $1,000 stake from that day would now be worth close to $9.5 million, placing the home improvement retailer ahead of both Nvidia and Microsoft.
The split factor is a fraction rather than a round number because two of those thirteen splits were unusual ratios: one five-for-four and one four-for-three, reflecting the company’s varied approach to managing share price over four decades. Home Depot’s position ahead of technology giants in this ranking demonstrates how consistent consumer-facing businesses in unglamorous sectors can outperform sophisticated technology plays when measured over sufficiently long time horizons.
4. McDonald’s Corporation — $8,648,532
IPO Date: April 21, 1965 | IPO Offer Price: $22.50 | Cumulative Split Factor: 729x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $8,648,532
McDonald’s went public in April 1965 at $22.50 per share — decades before any technology company on this list — and has split its stock twelve times since. One IPO share is now 729 shares worth about $195,000, an 8,649x gain on the offer price. Spread $1,000 across that April 1965 stake and it is now worth $8.6 million.
For most of its history, McDonald’s has been treated as a slow, defensive holding rather than a growth story — the kind of stock a cautious investor buys for its dividend and forgets about. It has still returned more to its earliest shareholders than Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and Apple. That result is not despite its steady, unexciting profile, but partly because of it: a business that does not collapse in recessions or technology disruptions gives compounding decades to work.
5. NVIDIA Corporation — $8,386,400
IPO Date: January 22, 1999 | IPO Offer Price: $12.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 480x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $8,386,400
Nvidia was listed in January 1999 at $12 per share, right in the middle of the dot-com boom, and survived the crash that wiped out most of its early peers. Six splits since then — in 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2021, and 2024 — mean one IPO share is now 480 shares worth around $100,000, a return of 8,386 times the original price. That is the strongest result of any technology company in the study, and it is still only enough for fifth place.
The cumulative split factor is 480-for-one: multiply 2 × 2 × 2 × 1.5 × 4 × 10 and the arithmetic is clean. A $1,000 investment at the 1999 IPO bought approximately 83 shares, which are now roughly 39,840 shares worth about $8.4 million at current prices near $210. Nvidia’s rise from a graphics processor maker into the backbone of global artificial intelligence infrastructure has made it the most strategically important semiconductor company in the world — but even that extraordinary trajectory is not enough to beat Walmart’s retail juggernaut across 56 years.
6. Microsoft Corporation — $6,807,360
IPO Date: March 13, 1986 | IPO Offer Price: $21.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 288x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $6,807,360
Microsoft went public in March 1986 at $21 a share, and nine stock splits have since multiplied that original share into 288, now trading at $496.37. A $1,000 day-one investment would today be worth approximately $6.8 million. The company’s split history reflects its dominance across multiple technological eras: from personal computing in the 1980s and 1990s, through the internet era, and into cloud computing and artificial intelligence. No company in the study is currently trading at a higher absolute share price.
7. Intel Corporation — $4,562,196
IPO Date: October 13, 1971 | IPO Offer Price: $23.50 | Cumulative Split Factor: 1,215x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $4,562,196
Intel listed in October 1971 at $23.50 a share and has since split its stock into a cumulative 1,215-for-one multiple — the highest split factor of any company in the top seven. Yet its current share price of $88.24 reflects a company that has significantly lost ground to rivals in recent years. Intel was replaced on the Dow Jones Industrial Average by Nvidia in November 2024, a symbolic reversal that captured its declining strategic position. A $1,000 investment at Intel’s IPO is worth $4.56 million — a strong absolute return, but the lowest among the companies listed before 1990.
8. Amazon.com, Inc. — $3,470,400
IPO Date: May 15, 1997 | IPO Offer Price: $18.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 240x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $3,470,400
Amazon listed in May 1997 at $18 a share, four splits later is 240 shares each worth $260.28, and a $1,000 first-day investment would now be worth $3.47 million. Eighth place may surprise those who associate Amazon with transformative, multi-decade wealth creation — and it is transformative, but the relatively recent IPO date of 1997 and a smaller cumulative split factor limit its ranking here. Companies that went public in the 1960s and 1970s have simply had more time.
9. Oracle Corporation — $3,215,592
IPO Date: March 12, 1986 | IPO Offer Price: $15.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 324x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $3,215,592
Oracle went public one day after Microsoft in March 1986 at $15 a share. Twelve splits later one share has become 324, trading at $148.87. A $1,000 investment at IPO is worth $3.2 million today. The database giant has experienced a significant resurgence in relevance in the AI infrastructure era, with its cloud infrastructure division growing rapidly as hyperscalers and AI companies compete for compute capacity. Oracle did not respond to BizWatch Nigeria’s request for comment by press time.
10. Apple Inc. — $3,191,491
IPO Date: December 12, 1980 | IPO Offer Price: $22.00 | Cumulative Split Factor: 224x | Value of $1,000 at IPO: $3,191,491
Apple listed in December 1980 at $22 a share, and five splits have since turned that share into 224, now trading at $313.45. A $1,000 investment on day one is worth $3.19 million — placing Apple tenth on a list many would have expected it to lead. The relatively modest split factor of 224 compared to Walmart’s 6,144 explains the gap. Apple’s stock price has also been a subject of investor debate in 2026, with some analysts questioning whether its AI product roadmap can sustain premium multiples as competition from Huawei, Samsung, and AI-native device makers intensifies.
THE ISSUES
Why Standard Return Tables Get It Wrong
The core methodological problem the Taurex study exposes is structural and widespread. When investors, journalists, and financial data providers calculate long-term IPO returns, the standard approach is to divide the current share price by the original offer price. This method ignores stock splits entirely. For companies that have split infrequently, the distortion is small. For companies that have split many times over many decades, the distortion is catastrophic — and it systematically understates the returns of the oldest, most successful businesses.
Time Horizon vs. Growth Rate: A Critical Trade-off
The ranking also reveals a tension between compound annual growth rate and total return. Tesla, which does not appear in the top ten, has compounded at approximately 42.5% annually — faster than Walmart’s roughly 20.8% per year. But Walmart has been compounding for 56 years; Tesla for far fewer. For investors watching SpaceX and OpenAI’s upcoming listing, this is the central lesson: first-day excitement is not the relevant variable. The question is what the business will look like in decade three and decade four.
WHAT’S BEING SAID
A market analyst from Taurex, commenting on the study’s findings, noted that the miscalculation of returns is consistent and directional:
“The figure most people quote for these companies is wrong, and it is wrong in the same direction every time. Divide Walmart’s price today by its 1970 offer price, and you get 532%, which is why Walmart never shows up on lists like this. The real number is closer to 3,885,000%, and the whole gap is twelve stock splits the arithmetic dropped. What the corrected ranking shows is that the biggest outcomes did not come from picking the most exciting company. Tesla has compounded faster than Walmart ever did, 42.5% a year against 20.8%, and Tesla still ranks fourteenth here. Walmart had 56 years. For anyone watching SpaceX now, or OpenAI next, that matters more than any first-day pop.”
— Market Analyst, Taurex
The Taurex report also noted an important caveat for retail investors: the figures assume shares were acquired at the IPO offer price, which most retail investors cannot access. SpaceX priced its shares at $135 and opened at $150 — meaning public investors who bought on day one already paid a premium over the offer price. That gap is common and can meaningfully affect long-term compound returns, particularly if the stock consolidates after listing.
Data published by Goldman Sachs on the 2026 IPO class shows that while the average IPO this year has generated a first-day return of 19%, in line with the 30-year median, returns have deteriorated in the weeks following listing. The GS Liquid IPO Index is down approximately 1% year-to-date, underscoring the divergence between day-one excitement and medium-term performance.
WHAT’S NEXT
• OpenAI’s public listing is expected before the end of 2026. If it proceeds at the reported fundraising range, combined with SpaceX’s June raise, the two listings could represent over $135 billion in new equity supply — a scale with little modern precedent.
• Coca-Cola shares at $91.99 are trading well above the $75 level at which the company last split its stock in 2012, making another split plausible given management’s historical preference for share accessibility.
• Nvidia’s share price near $210 puts another stock split unlikely in the near term according to most analysts, who peg the historical trigger range at $500–$1,000.
• The full Taurex research document — including complete calculations, methodology, and sources for all 18 companies tracked — is available on request from the platform.
BOTTOM LINE
The Bottom Line: The Taurex study delivers a corrective that the financial media should take seriously — the standard way of measuring long-term IPO returns is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that makes boring consumer businesses look unimpressive while amplifying the perceived dominance of technology giants with shorter histories. A $1,000 bet on Walmart in 1970 or Coca-Cola in 1919 was not glamorous and it did not make headlines; it made fortunes. As SpaceX’s public saga unfolds and OpenAI prepares to test the appetite of the world’s capital markets, the lesson from the top ten is not about which company is most exciting — it is about which one will still be splitting its stock in 2080.
Share prices referenced are as of August 26, 2026. Data source: Taurex August 2026 IPO Returns Report. BizWatch Nigeria is not a financial adviser. Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice.
