People who invested in GAFAM 10 years later vs. people who did nothing 10 years later

If you could write a letter to yourself 10 years ago, what would you say?

Go traveling, spend more time with family, take care of your health. Many people would write things like that. But when it comes to investing, many people living in Japan have the same regrets.

“I should have bought Apple back then.”

In early 2016, Apple’s stock price was about $95 per share. By 2026, it’s over $200. More than doubling in 10 years. And if you had reinvested the dividends, the returns would be even higher.

What about Microsoft? In early 2016, its stock price was about $50. It’s now over $400. About 8x.

Alphabet (Google’s parent company) was about $700 in 2016, and after stock splits, has risen substantially. Amazon is the same. And Meta (formerly Facebook) experienced a drop of more than 70% in 2022, but from 2023 to 2024 its stock price tripled or more as it recovered.

Over this decade, how big is the gap between those who continuously invested in GAFAM and those who did nothing? Today I’ll honestly write the concrete numbers and the stories behind them.

What exactly is GAFAM, again

First, let’s clarify the meaning of the term GAFAM.

It is an acronym formed from the first letters of Google’s parent Alphabet, Apple, Facebook’s rebranded Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Microsoft. It refers to the five giant tech companies that dominate the IT market globally.

These five aren’t just large; they operate infrastructures deeply embedded in our daily lives. If you use an iPhone, that’s Apple; if you use Gmail, that’s Alphabet; if you shop on Amazon, that’s Amazon; if you view Instagram, that’s Meta; if you use Word or Excel at work, that’s Microsoft. Without even realizing it, almost everyone today uses something from these five companies every day.

In April 2020, the total market capitalization of GAFAM surpassed the total market capitalization of all companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section. These five alone held more value than the entire Japanese stock market. When many Japanese people learned of this, they confronted the question, “Why don’t I own U.S. stocks?”

Yet even before that decade, GAFAM had already achieved overwhelming growth. A huge gap formed between those who knew and acted and those who knew but did not act.

“The gap over 10 years,” shown with concrete numbers

Let’s look at actual figures.

Suppose you invested 1 million yen each in every single stock at the start of 2016, totaling 5 million yen evenly distributed.

The 1 million yen invested in Apple became roughly 2–2.5 million yen over the next 10 years. With dividends reinvested, the real return would be even higher.

The 1 million yen in Microsoft grew to about 7–8 million yen, thanks to the cloud business transformation and early AI investments. Microsoft showed the most stable growth among GAFAM.

1 million yen in Alphabet grew to 4–5 million yen, supported by rapid growth in search advertising, YouTube, and Google Cloud.

1 million yen in Amazon grew substantially as it shifted its revenue pillars from EC to AWS, dramatically improving profitability.

1 million yen in Meta was the most volatile. In 2022 Meta collapsed more than 70% due to failed Metaverse investments and privacy issues, dropping to around 300,000 yen. Yet afterward, improvements in advertising and AI-driven performance led to a dramatic rebound from 2023 to 2024. For long-term holders, it ultimately yielded significant profits.

A 5 million yen investment grew to over 20 million yen in 10 years. That is roughly the reality. If you had left 5 million yen in a regular Japanese bank deposit during the same period, the interest earned would be only a few thousand to tens of thousands of yen. This gap wasn’t due to luck or talent—it came from “knowing and acting.”

But there is an important caveat: this is historical data and does not guarantee the same results in the future. GAFAM may not continue to grow at the same pace. I’ll touch on this again at the end.

Why GAFAM managed to grow so much

Understanding why GAFAM achieved such extraordinary growth over the last decade is crucial for future investment decisions.

The first reason is the “network effect.”

Take Meta as an example: once one person starts using it, friends start using it, and their friends use it too. The more users, the higher the platform’s value. This is the network effect. Once this mechanism is in place, it’s extremely hard for latecomers to steal the existing user base—even if they try to copy the platform. Meta’s monthly active users exceed 3 billion worldwide, across Instagram and WhatsApp.

The second reason is “platform monopolies.”

Apple’s iOS requires apps to go through the App Store to be sold, with fees supporting Apple’s enormous profits. Microsoft likewise monopolizes Windows and Office, making it practically impossible for companies to switch from Windows to Linux. This environment has persisted for a long time.

The third reason is “data as the oil of the 21st century.”

Google holds global search data, Amazon holds global purchase data, Meta holds global social graph data. Advertising that leverages this data generates immense revenue. Data doesn’t diminish with use; it gains value with every analysis. This trait underpins GAFAM’s profitability.

The fourth reason is “preemptive investment in AI.”

For years, GAFAM has invested billions in AI research and development. Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, AWS AI services, Meta’s large-language-model development, and Apple Silicon’s custom chip development. These earlier investments blossomed with the AI boom, driving revenue growth from 2023 to 2026.

To eliminate the regret of “I wish I had known sooner,”

After hearing about GAFAM’s 10-year growth, many feel they would have bought if they had known. But we must be honest here.

The reality is that many people “knew but did not buy.”

In 2016, it wasn’t a difficult forecast that Apple would continue to dominate the smartphone market. It was clear to IT-savvy people that Microsoft’s Azure cloud business would sustain its edge in the corporate market. It was well known by 2015 that Amazon had an overwhelming share in cloud services with AWS.

So why did so many Japanese people not buy, despite knowing?

The biggest reason is the “psychological hurdle to foreign stocks.” In Japan at that time, investing in U.S. stocks was viewed as something only a few did. Currency risk was unclear. Information in English was hard to understand. Taxes seemed troublesome. For these reasons, many didn’t take action for ten years.

But the situation has changed dramatically now. Japanese securities firms allow purchasing U.S. stocks in yen, and through NISA you can hold U.S. stock index funds or individual stocks tax-free. The hurdle to foreign stocks is now far lower than a decade ago.

Two ways to invest in GAFAM: direct stock ownership or via index funds

Let’s sort out actual investment methods here.

There are two main approaches to investing in GAFAM.

One is to buy individual stocks directly. If you have brokerage accounts such as Rakuten Securities, SBI Securities, or Monex, you can buy Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) using yen, with as little as one share, settled in Japanese yen.

The other is to hold indirectly through index funds. If you buy an index fund that tracks the S&P 500, GAFAM are included within it. In the S&P 500, the combined weight of GAFAM can exceed 20%. In other words, simply investing in a product like eMAXIS Slim U.S. Stocks (S&P 500) provides indirect exposure to GAFAM.

Which method is better depends on the investor’s goals and temperament.

Direct stock investing concentrates on a single company, which can yield large gains if that company grows significantly. However, it also carries higher risk because you’re exposed to the fortunes of one company. As in Meta’s 70% drop in 2022, you bear that risk directly.

Index funds are diversified, so even if one GAFAM stock falls sharply, others can support your portfolio. They reduce the risk of a big hit and are well-suited for long-term, regular investing.

What Meta’s crash and rebound teach us about “holding on”

Among GAFAM, Meta had the most dramatic move. Meta’s story is one of the best lessons for understanding long-term investing.

From late 2021 to 2022, Meta’s stock fell from about $700 to around $90, a drop of more than 70%. Metaverse investments weighed on earnings, privacy issues, and competition with TikTok converged. There were cries that “Meta is finished” and “Facebook is abandoned by the youth,” and many investors cut losses and sold.

However in late 2022, CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared “the year of efficiency,” launched large-scale cost-cutting and organizational restructuring. Advertising improved, AI-driven accuracy increased, and results began to rebound quickly.

As a result, from 2023 to 2024 Meta’s stock rebounded from the low around $90 to above $500. Investors who held through the crash or who bought more during the dip ended up with some of the largest gains over 10 years.

What this story teaches is clear: when the fundamental value of a company hasn’t changed, a stock price drop may reflect a temporary market overreaction, not a collapse of earnings. When the price returns to real value, investors who stayed with it are rewarded.

In the GAFAM context, companies with hundreds of millions to billions of users, massive data, and vast capabilities can become a buyer’s opportunity for long-term investors when there’s a temporary deterioration in earnings or market pessimism.

Is it too late to invest in GAFAM now?

This is likely what most people want to know the most. Here is an honest answer.

Compared to 10 years ago, GAFAM stock prices are already much higher. Microsoft’s P/E is around 30x, Alphabet and Amazon are at similar levels. The sense of “buying at a discount” no longer applies.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “too late.”

Right now, each GAFAM company is at the early stages of a new growth wave: AI. Microsoft is integrating Copilot across all products via its investment in OpenAI, and Azure AI demand is rapidly expanding. Alphabet is redefining search, ads, and Cloud around Gemini. Amazon’s AWS continues to provide essential cloud infrastructure for training and inference of AI models. Meta is advancing advertising precision with AI and developing its own AI assistant. Apple is embedding AI capabilities called Apple Intelligence into the iPhone, creating new growth drivers.

In other words, GAFAM isn’t just finishing its growth drivers from the past decade; it’s transitioning to the next growth driver—AI. Whether this transition will succeed is unknown, but it has the potential to deliver the same qualitative shift as in the past decade.

However, one thing must be said clearly. Past growth does not guarantee future results. Individual stock investing carries high returns and high risks. Even for GAFAM, risks like regulatory orders for splits, changes in competitive environments, and technological obsolescence exist.

Therefore, whether you invest in GAFAM via individual stocks or through index funds, the basic principles of “having ample funds,” “taking a long-term view,” and “diversifying” remain essential.

What you can do today to avoid regretting your 10-year-old self

If you could tell your 10-years-ago self to “buy Apple” or “buy Microsoft,” your assets would have grown significantly. But we can’t turn back time.

What matters is what you do today so that your future self 10 years from now does not regret, “I wish I had acted then.”

As a practical step today, open a brokerage account if you don’t have one. Opening an account with SBI Securities or Rakuten Securities is free and can be done in 10 minutes from your smartphone. Next, set up a NISA monthly investment. By simply committing to a global equity or S&P 500 index fund every month, you begin investing in some of the world’s best companies, including GAFAM.

If you’re interested in individual stocks, starting with small amounts is also a valid option. You can buy as little as one share, and owning one share each of GAFAM allows you to learn about investing and understand market movements gradually.

I believe there will come a day, 10 years from now, when you’ll look back and think, “It was worth starting then.” And that day will be heavily influenced by the choices you make today.