What if you invested in Rocket Lab in 2021?
RKLB · Industrial · Data through 2026-06-01
If you invested $1,000 in Rocket Lab in 2021
The same $1,000 in the S&P 500 would be worth $2,168(+116.8%)
The S&P 500 returned $2,168 on the same $1,000. Rocket Lab beat the market by $7,625.
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Pick any month and year to see what Rocket Lab would be worth.
Compare Rocket Lab to another stock
See how Rocket Lab stacks up since 2021, head to head.
What if Rocket Lab keeps this up?
Project forward at Rocket Lab's 50.5% historical growth rate. See 5-30 year scenarios.
Growth of $1,000
Rocket Lab vs. S&P 500 vs. US Dollar, 2021 to present
Year-by-Year Returns
$1,000 invested in Rocket Lab starting January 2021
| Year | Price | Value | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $10.38 | $1,000 | - |
| 2022 | $9.04 | $871 | -12.9% |
| 2023 | $4.97 | $479 | -45% |
| 2024 | $4.85 | $467 | -2.4% |
| 2025 | $29.05 | $2,799 | +499% |
| 2026 | $80.07 | $7,714 | +175.6% |
What this return means
$1,000 invested in Rocket Lab (RKLB) in 2021 is worth $9,793 today. That is a +879.3% gain, a little over 9.8x your money, measured to 2026-06-01.
That is a compound rate of about 50.5% a year, an extreme pace that few holdings sustain for 5.6 years. A plain S&P 500 fund would have turned that $1,000 into about $2,168 instead, leaving Rocket Lab ahead by around $7,625. The index compounded at about 14.9% a year over that period.
Getting here meant sitting through real volatility. The best single year was 2025 at +499.0%, and the worst was 2023 at -45.0%. At its lowest point the position was down about 53% from an earlier high. These figures use split-adjusted closing prices and exclude dividends, taxes, trading fees, and inflation, so a real after-tax result would differ.
Treat this as history rather than advice. 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 Rocket Lab at the close of every month from January 2021 through June 2026 means 66 buys and $6,600 contributed over about 5.5 years.
$100/month, dollar-cost averaged
$83,798
+1,169.7% on $6,600 in
Same $6,600, all in at the start
$64,633
+879.3% on $6,600 in
Spreading the buys out beat going all in at the start by $19,165. That happens when the price spent time below where it began, so averaging in caught the cheaper months. Averaging in also meant an average buy price of $8.01 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 RKLB split-adjusted monthly closes through June 2026. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
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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.