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Could $500 a month in VST grow into $96K? 
From an explosive energy rally to a recent pullback, VST’s journey has plenty to unpack.
Hit play and discover what the numbers reveal about long-term investing!
Imagine setting aside $500 a month for $VST for five years, buying a fixed dollar amount on a schedule, a method called dollar-cost averaging. In our example there is one buy each month from Nov 2021 through Oct 2026: 60 buys, $30,000 in total.
5-Year Performance: VST closed at $19.85 on Oct 28, 2021 and at $142.72 on Oct 28, 2026, a price gain of about 619.0%, or roughly 48.4% a year compounded (the steady yearly rate that would give the same total gain).
Portfolio Value: In that example, the $30,000 invested via dollar-cost averaging would have been worth about $96,100 at the Oct 28, 2026 close (about 3.2 times the money put in), while a single $10,000 lump sum invested on Oct 28, 2021 would have become about $71,900. (Price only: no dividends, fees or taxes, and these are examples, not forecasts.)
High & Low Extremes: The highest close of the period was $199.37 on Oct 29, 2025, so the Oct 28, 2026 close sat about 28.4% below it. The lowest close of the five years was $19.21 on Nov 4, 2021, about 3.2% below the $19.85 start.
Chart Perspective: To keep the headline in perspective, +619.0% is only about 3.5 percentage points above the +615.47% mark shown in the chart, a gap a few days of trading could open or close.
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Caution: past pace rarely continues. VST's Aug 7, 2026 release for the quarter ended Jun 30, 2026 showed Ongoing Operations Adjusted EBITDA of $1.767 billion, backed by strong power demand and nuclear operations. The stock fell from its $199.37 closing high toward $140.16 on Oct 23, 2026 and stood at $142.72 on Oct 28, a reminder that prices can pause even when results are strong.
The same lesson runs through today's SCHD story: with VST, the investor who kept buying $500 a month through the cooling stretches let time do the work, just as one share a week of SCHD builds a habit that doesn't depend on perfect timing.
