If you'd bought $1 of TGT every time you ran into Target since May 2016 — about four trips a month — you'd have put in $484 and be holding around $648 of Target today.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. A money-weighted return of about 5.7% a year. A winner, barely — and one that went through a 48% wood-chipper on the way.
The short version
- $4 a month into TGT for ~10 years became about $648 from $484 contributed. Money-weighted return: ~5.7% annualized, as of April 2026.
- TGT is a mixed result — it's positive, but the money-weighted return is below the S&P's long-run base rate, and the path was ugly. This is a reminder that two retailers in the same sector can diverge by a factor of three.
- The drawdown was a 48% peak-to-trough slide into 2023 — the inventory glut, the shrink crisis, and a series of boycotts in the same year stacked on top of each other.
- What this article describes hypothetically, Slyce does automatically: purchases at Target trigger a fractional-share buy of TGT, receipt by receipt.
The number, set up honestly
The math: four $1 contributions a month, starting May 2016, each buying TGT at that month's adjusted close. Dividends reinvested — Target has paid a dividend every year since 1967 and is one of the S&P's "Dividend Kings," with a current yield around 3%. Run 121 months. End in April 2026.
Contributed: $484. Current value: about $648.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. That's roughly $164 of gain on a decade of $4-a-month purchases — a 1.3x on money that was spread across the whole window.
The internal rate of return on that cash-flow stream is about 5.7% per year.Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. For scale: the S&P 500 has historically returned roughly 10% per year nominal since 1957.[2]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. TGT over this specific window underperformed the index by a meaningful margin — positive, but well behind a plain index fund. See the spend-to-own guide for the thesis this sits inside, and where under-the-index outcomes fit.
Why we're showing you the winners
Worth saying plainly: we picked TGT in hindsight, and hindsight is unkind here. The stock's run from 2016 to early 2022 was strong — peak-to-peak, TGT roughly tripled. Then the 2022–2023 retail reset happened in compressed form: an inventory glut from the post-pandemic demand cliff, a shoplifting and shrink crisis that ate margins, and a summer of boycotts that shaved same-store traffic. The stock ended 2023 lower than it started 2020.
The reason this cluster exists is not to recommend TGT. It's to explain the mechanic: if you had a system that captured a slyce of whatever you happened to buy, the portfolio would reflect your spending. Some slyces would be winners. Some would be laggards like this one. The spread is the point, not the pick.
What Slyce actually does
You don't open the Slyce calculator to simulate this. You spend at Target the way you already spend at Target, and Slyce buys a fractional share of TGT for you on the way through.
The mechanic: you connect the card or account you shop with. Purchases at Target — in-store and Target.com — pass through a rule that routes a small percentage into a real brokerage account in your name. The shares are TGT, not a derivative or a token. They vote with TGT, pay the TGT dividend, and sell on any normal brokerage execution. Your Slyces tracks the holding; The Feed tracks the receipts.
A comparison worth holding in mind: Walmart's version of this same math on the same window ended near $2,366 on $726 contributed, and what Costco did on the same window finished near $1,199 on $363. Same sector, same decade, sharply different outcomes. That's the texture spend-to-own captures: you hold all of them, weighted by where you actually shop.
The shape of the return
The ending balance is the story the article opens with. The drawdown is the part that would have made you quit.
TGT's worst peak-to-trough decline over the window was about 48% into 2023.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. On the DCA trajectory, that meant watching a position worth roughly $1,100 in late 2021 fall to around $580 two years later — cut nearly in half, while you kept contributing. The stock then ground sideways for most of 2024 and 2025 before a partial recovery in early 2026.
By April 2026 the account sits modestly above contributions. Had you stopped DCA in 2023 at the bottom — which plenty of people would have, reasonably — you'd be holding less than you put in. The return you see today is contingent on having kept buying while the headlines were bad.
This is the part of every historical-return article that doesn't photograph well. The 10-year chart shows a line that rose, peaked, crashed, and partly rebuilt. The lived experience was three years of being underwater while a sibling retailer on the same card statement was tripling.
Pitfalls
Three specific things to name, not just as disclaimers but as real risks to the idea of buying TGT because the calculator said it worked (barely).
Survivorship bias. TGT is one of the 20 tickers in the Slyce calculator's pre-built set. That set is drawn from companies that are still publicly traded. Retailers that were large in 2010 and are now defunct — Sears, Kmart, Toys R Us, Bed Bath & Beyond — would have been on an equivalent list at the start of the window. They're not here now. The calculator's universe is survivor-biased by construction, and TGT's 5.7% is already a survivor's number.
Concentration risk. The math above is one ticker, and it's a laggard. A spend-to-own account that shops only at Target ends up concentrated in the weaker big-box retailer on this window. The intended shape of a Slyce portfolio is the mixture of tickers your spending actually touches — TGT plus whatever groceries, gas, restaurants, and travel you buy. The diversification comes from the breadth of the wallet; it's how TGT's lag gets offset by another holding's gain.
Past returns ≠ future returns. TGT compounding at 5.7% over the 2016–2026 window does not mean TGT compounds at 5.7% over the 2026–2036 window. The inventory and shrink pressures that defined 2022–2023 may or may not fade. The S&P 500's long-run ~10% tells you what diversified equity has done across many windows.[2]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results.
For the custodial version of this — running the same mechanic inside a kid's account that also qualifies for the federal program — see the Trump Accounts guide.
FAQ
How was the $648 number calculated? We pulled TGT's monthly adjusted closes from Yahoo Finance for May 2016 through April 2026, simulated $4-per-month dollar-cost averaging (four $1 purchases, roughly the typical household's Target visit rate), and computed the ending portfolio value using the April 2026 close. Contributions total $484; the portfolio finished around $648. Re-runs will differ as the window rolls and prices move.
Does this include the dividend? Yes. Target has paid an uninterrupted dividend since 1967 and currently yields around 3%. The adjusted-close series reinvests dividends across the window, so the ending balance reflects price appreciation plus reinvested distributions.
What was the worst moment? The back half of 2022 and all of 2023. TGT drew down about 48% from its late-2021 peak, pressured by inventory markdowns, shrink-related margin erosion, and a mid-year boycott cycle. A DCA account started in 2016 would have watched a roughly $1,100 position fall to around $580 before partially recovering through 2024–2026.
Can I buy fractional TGT through a normal broker? Yes. Every major U.S. broker supports fractional TGT orders — you place the order in dollars and the broker computes the share fraction at execution. The slyce you'd own through this product is the same fractional TGT you could open at Schwab; the difference is the trigger.
Why four transactions a month? That's the default in the Slyce calculator for Target, drawn from typical shopping frequency across grocery, household, and Target.com. If your actual Target spend is higher or lower, run the calculator with your own numbers — it recomputes the trajectory at any contribution rate.
Is TGT a bad stock? That's not a question we're in a position to answer. It's a stock that underperformed the index over this ten-year window and has a current 3% dividend yield. Whether that's attractive to you depends on your own view of the company and the retail sector, which is not what this article is for.
Next steps
If you want to run this same math against your actual spending — the stores you actually shop at, the amounts you actually spend — the Slyce calculator does it for 20 tickers at once. The ending balances are less interesting than the shape: how much you'd have contributed, where the drawdowns were, and how much of the ending balance came from a handful of winners versus a spread across your wallet.
If you want to skip the modeling and sign up for the product, that's the home page and the waitlist below.
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Published Apr 14, 2026 · Updated Apr 14, 2026