40 years of stocks
Forty years of the US stock market, one box per year. It compounded to +3,126%.
Thirty of the forty were green. Nine were red, and 2011 finished dead flat (-0.003%, which is why it is grey rather than red).
The forty years compounded to +3,126% — $100 at the start of 1986 was about $3,226 by the end of 2025, or +9.1% a year, on price alone. Dividends would add to that.
But watch where the number stalls. It was +584% at the end of 1999 and +329% at the end of 2008 — less than before the century turned. The dot-com bust and the financial crisis cost a decade between them. Then +329% to +3,126% in the seventeen years after.
Nothing about it was a steady +9%. Only three of the forty landed between +8% and +12%. Nine gained 25% or more. Two lost over 20%: 2002 and 2008.
Calendar-year close-to-close on the S&P 500 price index, 40 complete years, dividends excluded. The +3,126% compounds the rounded figures on the frame, 0.4% under the index's own 32.4x — we would rather the number came from boxes you can check.
Sources: Yahoo Finance, cross-checked against Robert Shiller's monthly S&P series at Yale. Past years are not next year. Not advice.
