Walmart vs. Amazon: How a $10,000 bet played out over 5 years

Walmart's total return over the five years ending August 20, 2026 came in at 118.4%, turning a $10,000 starting position into $21,842. Amazon returned 62.6% over the same stretch, leaving that position worth $16,257.

The two paths differed: Amazon's position spent a prolonged stretch below its starting value before clawing back, while Walmart's drawdowns were shallower and its climb built steadily across the back half of the period.

For years the default assumption among retail investors was that e-commerce represented the structurally superior growth story, with Walmart's physical footprint and mass-market model treated as the slower alternative. This five-year scorecard challenges that framing.

Walmart returned 2.18 times the initial investment against Amazon's 1.63 times, a gap that scales with every additional dollar committed at the start of the period.