compoundsimHistorical Index Returns
Annual returns with and without dividends, in your own currency, worst drawdowns, and how often each index lost money over 1 to 20 years.
How to read historical index returns
Price, total and real returns
Price return counts only the change in the index level. Total return assumes every dividend is reinvested, and the dividend contribution is the gap between the two. Real return subtracts US CPI inflation over the same window, so it shows the growth in purchasing power. For long-term plans, total and real returns are the figures that matter: price return understates dividend-paying assets, and nominal returns flatter periods of high inflation.
Why the period changes the answer
Annualised returns depend heavily on where a window starts and ends. A period that begins near a market peak, such as 2000 or 2007, looks far worse than one that begins after a crash. Comparing 5, 10, 20 years and the full history shows how stable an asset's return has been. The calendar-year chart shows how widely single years vary, and the drawdown chart shows the deepest declines and how long they took to recover: what an investor would have had to sit through. Rolling returns go further: they test every start month, showing the worst, typical and best outcome for each holding period and how often it lost money.
Returns in your own currency
Every asset here is a US-dollar fund. Pick another currency and each month's value is converted at that month's closing exchange rate, so the returns, yearly bars, drawdowns and holding-period odds are what an investor counting in that currency saw, such as an unhedged S&P 500 fund bought in yen. The currency effect column is the part of the yearly return that came from the exchange rate: positive when the dollar strengthened. Real returns use US inflation, so they appear in the dollar view only.
About the data
Every asset except Bitcoin is tracked through an ETF: SPY (S&P 500), QQQ (Nasdaq 100), ACWI, SOXX, SCHD (US dividend stocks), AGG (US aggregate bonds), TLT (long-term Treasuries), SHY (1–3 year Treasuries), GLD (gold), EFA (developed ex-US), EEM (emerging markets) and VNQ (US REITs), so their returns are net of fund fees. All returns are in US dollars; for an investor in another currency, exchange-rate moves add to or subtract from them. Past returns do not predict future ones.