If you'd bought $1 of WMT every time you ran into Walmart since May 2016 — about six trips a month — you'd have put in $726 and be holding around $2,366 of Walmart today.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. A money-weighted return north of 22% a year, on the quietest blue chip in the group.
The short version
- $6 a month into WMT for ~10 years became about $2,366 from $726 contributed. Money-weighted return: ~22.5% annualized, as of April 2026.
- WMT is a winner on this specific window. We're showing it because you asked, not because it's representative of the group.
- The drawdown was shallow by large-cap standards — about 19% in 2022 — but it still meant watching a mid-four-figure position give back a chunk before it recovered.
- What this article describes hypothetically, Slyce does automatically: purchases at Walmart trigger a fractional-share buy of WMT, receipt by receipt.
The number, set up honestly
The math: six $1 contributions a month, starting May 2016, each buying WMT at that month's adjusted close. Dividends reinvested — Walmart has paid a cash dividend every year since 1974 and the current yield sits near 1%. Run 121 months. End in April 2026.
Contributed: $726. Current value: about $2,366.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. That's roughly $1,640 of gain on a decade of $6-a-month purchases — a 3.3x on money that was spread across the whole window, not dropped in at the start.
The internal rate of return on that cash-flow stream is about 22.5% 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. WMT over this specific window beat the index by a wide margin — it's the boring-compounder story, not the tech-melt-up story. See the spend-to-own guide for the thesis this sits inside.
Why we're showing you the winners
Worth saying plainly: we picked WMT in hindsight. In 2016 you didn't know Walmart would out-compound most of the S&P on a 10-year basis. You didn't know which big-box retailer was the winner — you were choosing between Walmart, Target, Costco, Home Depot, and a handful of others on your card statement, and the spread between them over the next decade turned out to be enormous.
The reason this cluster exists is not to recommend WMT. 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 of those slyces would be winners. Some would be losers. The spread is the point, not the pick.
That's why our pitch is "a little bit of every company you shop at," not "a lot of Walmart."
What Slyce actually does
You don't open the Slyce calculator to simulate this. You spend at Walmart the way you already spend at Walmart, and Slyce buys a fractional share of WMT for you on the way through.
The mechanic: you connect the card or account you shop with. Purchases at Walmart — in-store and online — pass through a rule that routes a small percentage into a real brokerage account in your name. The shares are WMT, not a derivative or a token. They split with WMT (most recently 3-for-1 in February 2024), vote with WMT, pay the WMT dividend, and sell on any normal brokerage execution. Your Slyces tracks the holding; The Feed tracks the receipts.
The point of running this automatically is the same point as the Target version of this math or how Costco ran on the same window: the capture happens at the moment of purchase, not in a separate ritual you never get around to.
The shape of the return
The ending balance is the story the article opens with. The drawdown is the part that would have shaken you off.
WMT's worst peak-to-trough decline over the window was about 19% in 2022, when Walmart pre-announced a margin hit on unsold general-merchandise inventory and the stock gapped down overnight.[1]Based on historical returns. Past performance doesn't predict future results. On the DCA trajectory, that meant watching a position worth roughly $900 fall to around $730 before the year was out. Not catastrophic on an absolute basis — but it's the kind of drawdown that feels bigger than the chart says, because the news that caused it was "Walmart can't sell its stuff."
By mid-2023 the account was back above its prior high. By 2026 it was up more than 2x on top of that. The return you see today is contingent on having shrugged off a bad quarter.
This is the part of every historical-return article that doesn't photograph well. The 10-year chart shows a line going up and to the right. The lived experience is two or three moments where the line stalled and the headlines got ugly.
Pitfalls
Three specific things to name, not just as disclaimers but as real risks to the idea of buying WMT because the calculator said it worked.
Survivorship bias. WMT 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 and still relevant to retail spending. Retailers that were giants 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 any historical-return story drawn from that universe inherits the bias.
Concentration risk. The math above is one ticker. A spend-to-own account that shops only at Walmart ends up concentrated in Walmart. The intended shape of a Slyce portfolio is the mixture of tickers your spending actually touches — WMT plus whatever groceries, gas, restaurants, and online orders you actually buy. One-ticker concentration is a tail risk; the diversification comes from the breadth of the wallet, not from an asset-allocation model.
Past returns ≠ future returns. WMT compounding above 22% over the 2016–2026 window does not mean WMT compounds at 22% over the 2026–2036 window. Mega-cap retailers have decades that look this good and decades that look punishing. The S&P 500's long-run ~10% tells you what diversified equity has done across many of both kinds of 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 $2,366 number calculated? We pulled WMT's monthly adjusted closes from Yahoo Finance for May 2016 through April 2026, simulated $6-per-month dollar-cost averaging (six $1 purchases, matching a typical household's Walmart visit rate), and computed the ending portfolio value using the April 2026 close. Contributions total $726; the portfolio finished around $2,366. Re-runs will differ as the window rolls and prices move.
Does this include the dividend? Yes. Walmart pays a cash dividend — currently around 1% yield — and the adjusted-close series we used reinvests dividends and accounts for the 3-for-1 stock split in February 2024. Share counts and per-share prices are comparable across the window.
What was the worst moment? Summer 2022. WMT dropped about 19% from its high after a surprise earnings pre-announcement about inventory glut and margin pressure. A DCA account started in 2016 would have watched a roughly $900 position slip to around $730 before the rebound. By 2023 that position was above its old peak.
Can I buy fractional WMT through a normal broker? Yes. Every major U.S. broker supports fractional WMT orders — you place the order in dollars and the broker computes the share fraction at execution. The mechanical capability is why spend-to-own works at all. The slyce you'd own through this product is the same fractional WMT you could open at Fidelity; the difference is the trigger.
Why six transactions a month? That's the default in the Slyce calculator for Walmart, drawn from typical shopping frequency across grocery, household, and Walmart.com. If your actual Walmart spend is higher or lower, run the calculator with your own numbers — it recomputes the trajectory at any contribution rate.
What if WMT has a flat decade from here? If you're still contributing, you keep accumulating shares at whatever the price is; a flat decade with a 1% dividend still adds something. If you've stopped contributing, the flat decade is a flat decade. The long-horizon math only works when it works, and past returns don't promise a repeat.
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 broad 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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Slyce Editorial
Published Apr 14, 2026 · Updated Apr 14, 2026