S&P 500 Rolling Ten Year Returns: Better Than You Think

by Bespoke Invest­ment Group

While the period from March 2000 through now has been clas­si­fied as the dark ages for invest­ing, the rolling ten year returns for the S&P 500 hit their high­est lev­els since Jan­u­ary 2008 this month. The chart below shows the his­tor­i­cal rolling ten-year returns for the S&P 500 going back to 1938. As shown in the chart, the returns have been rebound­ing from multi-decade lows in the last cou­ple of years and are now up to 51.9%. In other words, $100 invested in the S&P 500 ten years ago this month is worth $151.9 today.

Before we start call­ing it a golden age for equi­ties, though, we would note that a big rea­son for the cur­rent pos­i­tive level is the fact that this Sum­mer also rep­re­sents the 10-year anniver­sary of the end of the dot-com bear mar­ket that went from Spring 2000 through Sum­mer 2002. Time sure flies when you're hav­ing fun. Doesn't it?