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Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
If You Invested in These Popular Stocks During the COVID Pandemic, Here's How Much You'd Have Today
For veteran market watchers, the volatility of the stock market in 2025 brings back echoes of 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on asset prices. At the time, even the most popular stocks of the day suffered huge losses as investors seemed to lose total interest in owning them. But if you had the fortitude to step up and buy shares, you could have made a handsome profit in just five short years. The lesson is an appropriate one in light of the recent market volatility. As in 2020, even the most popular market leaders have been absolutely hammered in a short period of time, with some companies down over 20% or more in a matter of days. Read Next: Learn More: To help keep things in perspective, here's a look at how five of the most popular stocks in the S&P 500 have performed over the past five years, since the approximate time of their pandemic-era lows. By way of comparison, each stock's year-to-date performance and average analyst one-year projections are shown as well, offering a glimpse of how well the stocks might bounce back after their 2025 dips. Price on March 16, 2020: $4.89 Price on April 21, 2025: $96.91 Percentage return: 1,882% Year-to-date return: -28.7% Average analyst 12-month price target: $164.74 Nvidia may seem like a recent phenomenon to retail investors, but it's actually been on a tear for decades. Although it's notoriously volatile, that volatility is often to the upside. In fact, as of Dec. 10, 2024, Nvidia was the best-performing S&P 500 stock over the past five-, 10-, 15- and 20-year periods, according to Visual Capitalist. It suffered mightily during the pandemic bear market, but that just spring-loaded the company for incredible future growth. Analysts are still bullish on the stock for the foreseeable future, as it's the undisputed leader in artificial intelligence (AI) chips. A $1,000 investment in Nvidia made on March 16, 2020, would be worth over $19,700 as of April 21, 2025. Check Out: Price on March 16, 2020: $58.78 Price on April 21, 2025: $193.16 Percentage return: 229% Year-to-date return: -18.3% Average analyst 12-month price target: $237.87 Apple is likely the most well-known company on this list, as it has been innovating and developing outstanding consumer products since 1976. That was the year that the budding tech firm, co-founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, released its Apple I computer. Like all tech stocks, Apple got absolutely creamed during the pandemic sell-off, but smart investors knew to trust the company's unstoppable dominance. Ultimately, Apple went on to become the first company with a $3 trillion market capitalization. If you invested $1,000 in Apple back in March 2020, you'd have nearly $3,300. Price on March 16, 2020: $29.67 Price on April 21, 2025: $227.50 Percentage return: 667% Year-to-date return: -37.8% Average analyst 12-month price target: $311.27 Tesla is the very epitome of a 'feast or famine' stock. For years, the stock has been caught in a tug-of-war between bullish and bearish investors. The bulls see it evolving into an AI company dominating the robotaxi and autonomous vehicle market. The bears, on the other hand, see rapidly declining auto sales, an inattentive CEO and 'pie-in-the-sky' ambitions that could come to nothing. A March 2020 $1,000 investment in Tesla would be worth over $7,500 now. Price on March 16, 2020: $84.46 Price on April 21, 2025: $167.32 Percentage return: 98% Year-to-date return: -21.5% Average analyst 12-month price target: $248.71 In the tech world, if you can't keep up with the latest trends, even with an original killer idea, you might end up on the scrap heap of 'one-trick ponies.' Amazon courted this risk in its earliest days, when it was simply an online bookstore. But thanks to its ability to adapt, it now stands as the fourth-largest company in the S&P 500. The company's AI integration across its very profitable Amazon Web Services division have analysts excited for Amazon's future. A $1,000 investment in Amazon on March 16, 2020, would be worth over $1,800 as of April 21, 2025. Price on March 16, 2020: $145.33 Price on April 21, 2025: $484.66 Percentage return: 233% Year-to-date return: -17.4% Average analyst 12-month price target: $722.91 Meta Platforms was still known as Facebook back in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, before it rebranded itself as its focus shifted to opportunities in the evolving metaverse. While that may not have gone as well as founder Mark Zuckerberg may have wanted, the company is still firing on all cylinders. In addition to absolutely dominating the ever-growing social media space, the company is pulling in huge amounts of advertising revenue due to its improvements in targeted marketing. The company is also investing heavily in AI, which seems to be the wave of the future in the tech industry. A $1,000 investment in Meta in March 2020 would be worth nearly $3,000 today. More From GOBankingRates 5 Types of Vehicles Retirees Should Stay Away From Buying These 10 Used Cars Will Last Longer Than an Average New Vehicle 4 Things You Should Do if You Want To Retire Early 4 Affordable Car Brands You Won't Regret Buying in 2025 This article originally appeared on If You Invested in These Popular Stocks During the COVID Pandemic, Here's How Much You'd Have Today Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Microsoft is turning 50. Here are 4 of its peers that are also still around
Half a century after its founding in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 4, 1975, Microsoft (MSFT) consistently ranks as one of the world's most valuable companies. Currently sitting on a $2.7 trillion market cap, the software company, now based in Redmond, Washington, has turned into an artificial intelligence leader. The company, co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, has outlived several of its peers and competitors over the decades — but it's not the only one to do so. Here are four other tech companies that came about around the same time and are still here today. Cloud technology company Oracle was founded in Santa Clara, California in 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates. The engineers initially called it Software Development Laboratories. It was renamed Relational Software Inc. before becoming Oracle (ORCL) Corporation in 1982. Ellison currently serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer. Oracle moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas in 2020, and is now planning to move to Nashville, Tennessee. Apple (AAPL) was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976 in Los Altos, California. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who were college dropouts, founded the company in partnership with electronics industry executive Ronald Wayne. The Apple I personal computer was released the same year. Wozniak and Jobs both left the company in 1985, but Jobs returned in 1997 to serve as interim chief executive. He permanently took on the role from 2000 until 2011, when he resigned due to his pancreatic cancer. The company officially became 'Apple' in 2007 after expanding from computers into other products, such as the iPhone. Computer hardware giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was founded by Jerry Sanders and some of his Fairchild Semiconductor colleagues on May 1, 1969. The company, which focused on logic chips at the start, was initially headquartered in Sunnyvale, California before moving to Santa Clara. Today, the company has a market cap of $166 billion. Intel was founded on July 18, 1968 by Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore, the engineer whose prediction that the number of transistors on a microchip will double every two years became known as Moore's law. Noyce and Moore were later joined by Andy Grove, who went on to serve as the company's chief executive from 1987 to 1998. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
26-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Chasing Perfection Will Kill Your Startup Before It Even Begins
Just be sure not to explode on your way up. getty There is an undeniable allure to perfection, and many make a habit of chasing it. For some entrepreneurs and engineers, striving for perfection is not just an ambition; it's a defining trait. They understand what excellence looks like and are willing to sacrifice nearly anything to reach it, which is exactly why they are where they are today. However, perfection has its time and place, and entrepreneurship is usually neither. Entrepreneurs must first identify what clients truly need and, more importantly, what they are willing to pay for. That's the real priority, with perfection being the end goal way down the road. The ability to build something clients want and to deliver it as early as possible is what sets successful entrepreneurs apart from the rest. Success doesn't come from perfecting a product in isolation; it comes from testing, learning, and adapting in real time. Luckily for us, there is a proven formula for achieving it: listen to your customers, do so early and stay open to adjusting your goals. A Swiss watch is a miracle to behold, and building one is as much an honor as owning one. But in entrepreneurship, the pursuit of perfection can be a costly distraction. Sure, the Wall of Fame of entrepreneurship has its share of revered builders who relentlessly chased perfection, Steve Jobs first among them. Joining their ranks is a dream many hold, but getting there is not at all an obvious matter. Many forget that even Steve Jobs' famed persistence for perfection emerged later in life. The Apple I, as close to a modern relic of entrepreneurship as one can get, is a far cry from perfection. 'It didn't need to be perfect, nor could it have been,' Feross Aboukhadijeh, CEO of Socket and an experienced founder with a series of successful exits and open source hits under his belt, notes. 'The key is to deliver something that solves a problem and to keep improving from there.' For Wozniak and Jobs, the Apple I met just enough client demand to chart a path forward, and what a path it's been. It's a lesson Feross learned early. His first startup, PeerCDN, had revolutionary peer-to-peer technology, but it failed to gain traction. 'The underlying tech was great, but there just weren't enough customers who would pay for it,' he admits. After that, his approach to building companies, and the products they exist to ship, has shifted to focusing on what is great and also sells: 'When I built Socket I spent a long time on the road, listening and talking to clients. If out of 40 people, 39 don't say they'll pay for it or if they aren't paying enough, there's no sense in building it.' Today, Socket's cybersecurity platform protects over 7,500 organizations and 300,000 GitHub repositories, all because Feross focused on what customers wanted him to build, not just what he wanted to create. Building a product where go-to-market and product-market fit aren't mysteries to solve later, but rather the starting point, is entrepreneurship at its best. Voltaire once warned us that perfect is the enemy of good, but it's more than that. For entrepreneurs, perfection is the enemy of getting started, gaining traction, and ultimately building a successful business on what might be a great idea waiting for execution. Jeff Gallino, CEO of CallMiner, puts it bluntly: 'Good ideas are everywhere. People who can execute are rare, and even rarer are those who execute only that which serves the client.' CallMiner mines over one billion customer interactions annually, providing conversation intelligence to companies ranging from airlines to retailers, and Jeff credits the company's success to its relentless focus on execution. 'When we launched, we focused on only the MVP and how well it served the client,' Jeff explains. 'Perfection is the enemy of good in software. You build as much as you need to sell, then iterate.' When founders obsess over perfection, they often forget what matters most: building something people want and will pay for, not just chasing a great idea. Wherever ideas are abundant but execution is rare, it's the companies that launch imperfectly, listen intently, and iterate quickly that come out ahead. This is a fact that Jon Bennert, CEO of Air Oasis, has also taken to heart. 'For us, customer feedback drives everything,' Jon explains. 'When we first started out, we would often innovate for the sake of innovation and our product lineup was something entirely different than it is today. Listening to what our customers actually want, and acting on it immediately, is something we've learned to do more of, not least because of how it's guided us to build products that sell themselves.' This mindset has transformed Air Oasis, helping the company scale its direct-to-consumer sales and maintain loyalty through rapid iteration. The company has also shifted its focus from internal R&D to a more collaborative approach where specialized third parties take over what 'perfectionist CEOs' might consider core-functions to the build such as PCB design. When Air Oasis started out, the company focused on building innovative products in-house. But over time, Jon realized that the 'build it and they will come' approach was flawed. 'It's really the customer who matters,' he says. 'They'll tell you what they want, and what they need. You just have to listen.' This responsiveness helped Air Oasis not only survive but thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for air purifiers skyrocketed. 'When a customer emails us with a complaint, we start planning the next product that same day,' Jon says. Herein lies a fundamental truth about effective execution: the best products are not built in isolation. Feross and Jon demonstrated this by integrating their clients into the creation process. By continuously seeking feedback, they ensured that every feature developed and every adjustment made was purposeful, directly addressing what customers valued and were willing to invest in. Flexibility is the quiet force behind entrepreneurial success, and it flourishes when founders let go of chasing perfection. The ability to pivot, to adapt quickly when something isn't working or another thing could work even better, is often the difference between failure and enduring success. Scott Stevenson, CEO of Spellbook, knows this all too well. 'My first business was building a physical product that was a genre-bending innovation in the musical instruments industry, but commercially it never really worked out,' Scott begins. 'I'm glad I didn't double down on it any further than I did. If I hadn't let go of it, I would have never reached the core business idea that we've banked on for Spellbook's success today,' Scott adds, noting that Spellbook's foundations are built on personal frustrations with the legal industry's inefficiencies and hundreds of hours spent with lawyers, learning their workflows, before building something that fits seamlessly into how they work. 'Even with our legal product, we launched over 100 different marketing pages before we figured out how to build and market something that lawyers loved. That came from running a new experiment every week for 2 years. Fast iteration is everything.' The Spellbook team's flexibility and focus on learning from its users allowed the company to grow its revenue fivefold in a year. 'It's all about being the wind behind your customers' backs, not a roadblock,' Scott emphasizes. Lurein Perera, CEO of GiveCard, reinforces this idea of adaptability. His company provides financial infrastructure for nonprofits and governments to distribute cash assistance through prepaid debit cards. 'It's easy to assume you know what people need, but the reality is often very different,' Lurein shares. 'We've found that the key to success is starting small, listening, and iterating quickly to meet the actual needs of users.' GiveCard's ability to pivot based on client feedback has been a gamechanger for their client's social impact programs. 'One of our partners initially wanted a system for distributing food assistance, but as we engaged with end-users, it became clear that direct cash assistance gave them more freedom and dignity. That feedback reshaped how we approached the project,' Lurein explains. 'If we hadn't been willing to pivot, we wouldn't have been able to deliver a solution that truly worked for the people who needed it most.' The lesson Lurein learned is simple, yet powerful. Before you build, talk. Learn more about your clients with each moment spent building. And build only what you must. These three steps form the foundation of a perfect product-market fit: The path to entrepreneurial success is never as straightforward as a three-point list, but as the stories of the CEOs above show, these steps provide a strong starting point to ensure you're on the right track from day one.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bids cross $21,000 for the 'iconic' Twitter logo sign that Elon Musk had removed from HQ
The Twitter logo sign that hung outside the company's San Francisco headquarters is up for auction. Bids surpassed $21,000 as of Monday night. The seller, RR House, estimates the sign's value at upwards of $40,000. Twitter's blue bird logo sign — which formerly hung outside the company's headquarters in San Francisco — is up for auction for the second time. The current seller, RR Auction, obtained the sign in Elon Musk's 2023 auction of Twitter memorabilia. Musk sold off a slew of artifacts associated with Twitter — including a coffee table and beer tap — after his takeover of the company in 2022. Some items, like a Twitter-themed statue, sold for thousands. The bird logo, nicknamed "Larry" after Celtics player Larry Bird, was synonymous with Twitter until Musk's rebranding of the social-media platform to X in 2023. Musk's efforts to take down Twitter's old signage in 2023 made headlines after police showed up and temporarily halted the work. The rebranding also included changes to the inside of the company headquarters, like replacing the blue birds with black walls and X-themed conference rooms. Musk has also moved X's headquarters from San Francisco to Texas. "Although Twitter and its light blue bird have since retired, the symbol remains an icon of tech and social media history, an instantly recognizable emblem in the same league as Nike or Apple Computer," RR Auction said in the listing. The auction house estimates the sign's value at upward of $40,000. Eleven bids had already been placed as of Monday evening, driving the current price up to $21,664. The bird is on sale as part of a larger auction dubbed "Steve Jobs and the Apple Revolution" that opened on February 27. Potential buyers have only a couple more days to bid before its end date of March 20. Other items up for auction include Apple checks from the 1970s that were signed by Steve Jobs — with one bidding at over $89,000 — and a functional Apple I computer bidding at more than $205,000. Whoever wins the bird logo will be responsible for paying to ship the hulking signage — which clocks in at roughly 560 pounds — from its current home in San Francisco storage to its final destination. Business Insider reached out to RR Auction for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Lays Into 'Bully' Elon Musk Over DOGE Firings
While Steve Wozniak has long criticized the personality flaws of his late friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, he has far more damning things to say about fellow tech mogul Elon Musk. The 74-year-old entrepreneur shared his thoughts with CNBC on Tuesday at a tech conference in Spain. 'I don't know what got into his head,' said Wozniak, referring to the Tesla CEO. 'Sometimes you get so rich at these big companies, and you're on top. It goes to your head, and you're the most incredible person in the world and the brightest, and you're gonna dictate what others will do.' As a 'special government employee' heading Donald Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has been dismantling federal agencies with the purported aim of slashing wasteful public spending. This has led to thousands of federal workers being fired and legal pushback in the courts. 'Bullying is the best way to think of it,' Wozniak told CNBC. 'If you're in school, the bully's gonna force their way on the little guy. I don't know, I've always favored the little guy over the big guy — and I've always favored the consumer of a good over the producer.' Wozniak had even harsher words for Trump, however. 'There are types of people that you associate with in your life that are good, pleasant, friendly and care about others, care about animals, even,' he told the outlet. 'And Trump is not one of them. He's a disgusting person and has always been and always will be.' After the Supreme Court thwarted Trump and Musk's efforts to freeze some $2 billion in foreign aid, Musk urged Republican senators on Capitol Hill to help him find another way to rescind that funding. Democratic lawmakers resoundingly booed Musk Tuesday evening when Trump thanked him during his address to Congress. Meanwhile, Wozniak also accused Musk of ruining his electric Tesla vehicles with steadily worsening designs. Wozniak, who invented the Apple I and Apple II computers, owns several Teslas himself. 'Every step up where they changed things in the car, it got worse and worse and worse, and now it is just miserable for user interface,' Wozniak told CNBC. 'Coming from Apple, user interface, the way you deal with technology, is the most important thing in the world.' He concluded, 'And Tesla is the worst in the world at that.' Green Day Slams JD Vance With Lyrics Change At Australian Concert DNC Chair Scorches Musk And DOGE With 3 Fiery Words Jasmine Crockett Sums Up GOP Lawmakers In 1 Damning Word Regarding Trump And Musk
