The roller coaster ride of total returns on the S&P 500! (Updated to October 2025)

The roller coaster ride of total returns on the S&P 500! (Updated to October 2025)

• November 17, 2025
  The roller coaster ride of total returns on the S&P 500! 🎢📈 (Updated to October 2025)

Imagine investing $10,000 in the S&P 500 (with dividends reinvested and adjusted for inflation). How much would you have today depending on when you started?

Last 5 years: +73.84% → $17,384 (actual annualized return: 11.11%)
Last 10 years: +203.65% → $30,365 (11.16% annualized)
Last 15 years: +449.02% → $54,902 (11.41% annualized) ← the best horizon right now!
Last 20 years: +432.45% → $53,245 (8.39% annualized)
Last 30 years: +906.19% → $100,619 (7.72% annualized)
The longer the term, the less crazy the ups and downs are… but beware: if we had asked this same question in March 2009 (the bottom of the financial crisis), those same 5 years would have left you with only $6,654 in real purchasing power (-8.12% annualized). You would lose a third of the real value!

Moral of the story:
Stocks are a brutal roller coaster in the short term, but historically (since 1900) real annualized returns have ranged from <2% to >11% depending on the period chosen.

The closer you are to retirement, the less tolerance you have for these declines. Diversification is not optional, it is mandatory. 💡

Original source (including spectacular charts):
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/11/04/the-total-return-roller-coaster-october-2025