Stocks / PFE
What If You Had Invested in Pfizer 10 Years Ago?
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) with real monthly prices, dividends reinvested, through November 2026.
PFE $29.39 ▼ -1.64% last close, Nov 06, 2026
If you had invested $1,000 in PFE in November 2016, today it would be worth
$1,525
Same $1,000 in the S&P 500 (SPY): $3,907
If you had put $500 a month into PFE since November 2016, your $60,500 would be worth today
$68,543
Same plan in the S&P 500 (SPY): $129,289
More options in the What If calculator.
PFE live price chart
PFE returns by period
| Period | Total return | Per year | $1,000 became | SPY per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | +21.8% | +21.8% | $1,218 | +8.8% |
| 3 years | +17.1% | +5.4% | $1,171 | +18.7% |
| 5 years | -28.3% | -6.4% | $717 | +11.5% |
| 10 years | +52.5% | +4.3% | $1,525 | +14.6% |
| 20 years | +171.3% | +5.1% | $2,713 | +10.6% |
| Since 1985 | +7325.5% | +10.8% | $74,255 | — |
PFE year by year
Best full year: 1991 (+112.8%). Worst: 2023 (-41.3%).
| Year | PFE | SPY | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | +25.9% | +8.7% | |
| 2025 | +0.6% | +17.7% | |
| 2024 | -2.2% | +24.9% | |
| 2023 | -41.3% | +26.2% | COVID vaccine and Paxlovid sales collapsed, and Pfizer lost about 41% even counting dividends. |
| 2022 | -10.4% | -18.2% | |
| 2021 | +66.7% | +28.7% | The COVID vaccine made Pfizer one of the most watched stocks in the world, and it rose about two thirds. |
| 2020 | +3.1% | +18.3% | |
| 2019 | -6.9% | +31.2% | |
| 2018 | +24.8% | -4.6% | |
| 2017 | +15.9% | +21.7% | |
| 2016 | +4.4% | +12.0% | |
| 2015 | +7.1% | +1.2% | |
| 2014 | +5.3% | +13.5% | |
| 2013 | +26.2% | +32.3% | |
| 2012 | +20.4% | +16.0% | |
| 2011 | +28.8% | +1.9% | |
| 2010 | +0.3% | +15.1% | |
| 2009 | +8.2% | +26.4% | |
| 2008 | -17.0% | -36.8% | |
| 2007 | -8.1% | +5.1% |
PFE: all at once or every month?
Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 1985 (491 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 301 (61%). Pfizer's long stretches of going nowhere made monthly buying win more often than for most stocks here: almost every start in 2004, 2007-2008 and 2022-2023 favored it. The best case for monthly investing was a start in December 2022, when it finished the year 35% ahead.
Worst drop
PFE's worst fall in this history was -66.5%, a loss of more than half, from June 2000 to February 2009. Getting back to the old high took until November 2013: 57 months from the bottom and 13.4 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $335 at the low.
Pfizer peaked in 2000, around its Warner-Lambert deal, at a price that assumed fast growth would continue. Instead patent expirations loomed, drug-safety scares in 2004 hit the industry, Pfizer's own Celebrex and Bextra among them, and the 2008 crisis deepened a slide of about two thirds that took until late 2013 to recover with dividends.
Pfizer dividends
PFE paid $1.72 per share over the last 12 months, in January, May, July and November. At $29.39 that is 5.85%, a high yield, so a large part of the return arrives as cash. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +3.6% a year, steadily. The yearly total did not fall once in the last ten years. Amounts are adjusted for splits.
| Year | Dividends / share | Change | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $1.72 | +2.4% | 6.91% |
| 2024 | $1.68 | +2.4% | 6.33% |
| 2023 | $1.64 | +2.5% | 5.70% |
| 2022 | $1.60 | +2.6% | 3.12% |
| 2021 | $1.56 | +8.2% | 2.64% |
| 2020 | $1.44 | +5.5% | 3.92% |
| 2019 | $1.37 | +5.9% | 3.68% |
| 2018 | $1.29 | +6.3% | 3.12% |
| 2017 | $1.21 | +6.7% | 3.53% |
| 2016 | $1.14 | +7.1% | 3.69% |
Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.
PFE dividend history: last 12 payments
| Ex-dividend date | Amount | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 06, 2026 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| Jul 24, 2026 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| May 08, 2026 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| Jan 23, 2026 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| Nov 07, 2025 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| Jul 25, 2025 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| May 09, 2025 | $0.4300 | +0.0% |
| Jan 24, 2025 | $0.4300 | +2.4% |
| Nov 08, 2024 | $0.4200 | +0.0% |
| Jul 26, 2024 | $0.4200 | +0.0% |
| May 09, 2024 | $0.4200 | +0.0% |
| Jan 25, 2024 | $0.4200 | — |
How much Pfizer do you need for $1,000 a month?
About $205,047, or roughly 6,977 shares at $29.39. That uses PFE's last 12 months of dividends ($1.72 a share, a 5.85% yield) and is before tax.
| Income | Invest | Shares | Paid as |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $102,523 | 3,488 | $1,500/qtr |
| $1,000 | $205,047 | 6,977 | $3,000/qtr |
| $2,000 | $410,093 | 13,953 | $6,000/qtr |
PFE pays quarterly (ex-dividend in Jan, May, Jul, Nov), so “$1,000 a month” really arrives as about $3,000 four times a year.
The payout grew 3.6% a year over the last five years. If it kept that pace, about $144,121 invested today, with nothing added and nothing reinvested, would be paying $1,000 a month ten years from now. That is a projection, not a promise.
Check the price too. Not counting dividends, PFE went from $59.05 at the end of 2021 to $29.39 today (-50.2%). So part of what the dividends paid was given back in the share price.
These are mostly qualified dividends, taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% at the federal level depending on your income, plus any state tax. In an IRA or Roth IRA there is no tax on them along the way.
Want to build toward it with monthly buys? Try the dividend calculator with PFE's numbers filled in.
Stock splits
- July 1983: 2-for-1
- April 1991: 2-for-1
- July 1995: 2-for-1
- July 1997: 2-for-1
- July 1999: 3-for-1
One share bought before 1983 is 48 shares today.
About Pfizer
| Company | Pfizer Inc. |
| Listed | NYSE (public since 1942) |
| Sector | Health care (pharmaceuticals) |
| Dividend | Paid for decades; halved in 2009 |
Pfizer is one of the oldest and largest U.S. drug companies, founded in New York in 1849. Its blockbusters have included Lipitor, once the best-selling drug in the world, and more recently the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Germany's BioNTech and the COVID pill Paxlovid.
COVID made 2021 and 2022 the biggest years in Pfizer's history, with revenue near $100 billion in 2022. When demand for COVID products collapsed, the stock gave back all of those gains and more.
Pfizer has a long habit of growing through huge acquisitions: Warner-Lambert in 2000, Pharmacia in 2003, Wyeth in 2009 and the cancer drug maker Seagen in 2023. In 2020 it spun off its off-patent drug business, which merged with Mylan to form Viatris.
The patent cliff, again
Drug companies live on patents that expire. Pfizer lost Lipitor's U.S. exclusivity in late 2011, and several of its current best sellers, including the blood thinner Eliquis, which it shares with Bristol Myers Squibb, face generic competition later this decade. The Seagen deal and a push into obesity drugs are bets on replacing that revenue.
A high yield, for a reason
Pfizer's dividend yield has been well above most big drug companies' since 2023, mainly because the share price fell, not because the payout jumped. A high yield on a falling stock can be an opportunity or a warning; the dividend table on this page shows how the payout itself has moved.
Questions about PFE
Did PFE beat the S&P 500?
No. Over the last 20 years it trailed by 5.5 percentage points a year: +5.1% a year for PFE against +10.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. It also fell harder at its worst (-66.5% against -50.8% for SPY over the same history).
Has Pfizer ever cut its dividend?
Yes. In 2009, to help pay for Wyeth, it halved the quarterly dividend from 32 cents to 16 cents, and later began raising it again.