What if you invested in Eli Lilly in 2020?
LLY · Healthcare · Data through 2026-06-01
If you invested $1,000 in Eli Lilly in 2020
The same $1,000 in the S&P 500 would be worth $2,540(+154%)
The S&P 500 returned $2,540 on the same $1,000. Eli Lilly beat the market by $6,724.
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Compare Eli Lilly to another stock
See how Eli Lilly stacks up since 2020, head to head.
What if Eli Lilly keeps this up?
Project forward at Eli Lilly's 40.2% historical growth rate. See 5-30 year scenarios.
Growth of $1,000
Eli Lilly vs. S&P 500 vs. US Dollar, 2020 to present
Year-by-Year Returns
$1,000 invested in Eli Lilly starting January 2020
| Year | Price | Value | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $129.47 | $1,000 | - |
| 2021 | $196.69 | $1,519 | +51.9% |
| 2022 | $235.60 | $1,820 | +19.8% |
| 2023 | $334.94 | $2,587 | +42.2% |
| 2024 | $634.52 | $4,901 | +89.4% |
| 2025 | $802.35 | $6,197 | +26.4% |
| 2026 | $1,033.64 | $7,984 | +28.8% |
What this return means
Putting $1,000 into Eli Lilly (LLY) in 2020 returned $9,264. That is a +826.4% gain, a little over 9.3x your money, measured to 2026-06-01.
That is a compound rate of about 40.2% a year, an extreme pace that few holdings sustain for 6.6 years. The same $1,000 in an S&P 500 index fund over the same span would be about $2,540, so Eli Lilly beat the index by roughly $6,724. The index compounded at about 15.2% a year over that period.
Getting here meant sitting through real volatility. The best single year was 2024 at +89.4%, and the worst was 2022 at +19.8%. These figures use split-adjusted closing prices and exclude dividends, taxes, trading fees, and inflation, so a real after-tax result would differ.
None of this is a recommendation. It is a record of what already happened, and past performance does not guarantee future results.
What if you invested $100 a month instead?
Most people do not drop a lump sum in on day one. They add a fixed amount every month. Putting $100 into Eli Lilly at the close of every month from January 2020 through June 2026 means 78 buys and $7,800 contributed over about 6.5 years.
$100/month, dollar-cost averaged
$29,686
+280.6% on $7,800 in
Same $7,800, all in at the start
$72,260
+826.4% on $7,800 in
Going all in at the start beat spreading the buys out by $42,574. That is the usual result when a stock trends up: each monthly buy pays a higher price than the last, so the average cost climbs. Averaging in also meant an average buy price of $315.15 per share across the whole stretch, so the monthly buyer never had to time a single low. Neither number counts dividends, taxes, or trading costs.
Illustrative fixed $100/month example, not a recommendation. Figures are computed from LLY split-adjusted monthly closes through June 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Eli Lilly at different times
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For informational and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All calculations are based on split-adjusted closing prices from Yahoo Finance and do not account for dividends, taxes, or trading fees. See our methodology and full disclaimer.