Opportunity Cost Calculator
The real cost of investing in a SPAC wasn't just the money you lost — it was what you could have made elsewhere. Enter your investment and see the difference between your SPAC pick, the S&P 500, Treasury bonds, and Bitcoin.
Configure Your Scenario
Nikola
$0.00
Return: -100.0%
S&P 500
$17.3K
You'd have $17.3K more
Treasury Bonds
$12.2K
~4% annual, risk-free
Bitcoin
$40.8K
Outperformed everything
Opportunity Cost vs S&P 500
$17.3K
That's what you gave up by investing in Nikola instead of an index fund
Side-by-Side Comparison
Assumptions & Methodology
- • S&P 500 returns: 2020 (+16%), 2021 (+27%), 2022 (-19%), 2023 (+24%), 2024 (+23%), 2025 (+10%)
- • Treasury bonds: ~4% annual return (approximate T-bill rate for the period)
- • Bitcoin: 2020 (+305%), 2021 (+60%), 2022 (-65%), 2023 (+155%), 2024 (+120%), 2025 (+30%)
- • SPAC returns use total return from merger price to current/final price
- • All returns are approximate and for illustrative purposes only
Why Opportunity Cost Matters
When evaluating SPAC investments, most people focus on absolute losses. But the true damage is measured in opportunity cost — what your money would have earned in a simple index fund. Someone who put $10,000 into Nikola in 2020 didn't just lose $10,000. They also missed out on turning that $10,000 into roughly $20,000+ in the S&P 500 over the same period.
The SPAC bubble coincided with one of the strongest bull markets in history. From 2020 to 2025, the S&P 500 roughly doubled. Every dollar parked in a failing SPAC was a dollar that couldn't participate in that run. For many investors, the opportunity cost exceeded the actual loss.