I felt a little nostalgic this morning, looking back at my earliest days as an investor. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) was one of the first stocks I ever bought (as part of a diversified group of seven tickers in October 2000). An avid reader of The Motley Fool, I was ready to dip my first toe into the waters of Wall Street, taking advantage of low stock prices in the middle of the dot-com bubble popping. That $400 bet on AMD (and another $400 spread across six stocks in healthcare, car brands, and retailers) felt big at the time.

Four years later, I sold those tentative AMD shares at an effective return of 28%, including $33 of transaction fees along the way. Without the fees, it would have been a 37% gain. By comparison, the S 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) index fell 13% over the same period on a dividend-adjusted basis.

But what if I had held on to that early AMD investment until today? How much would that original stake of $400 be worth now?

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Source Fool.com