The Most Important Investment Chart of the Past Decade

The biggest investment story of the past decade is that stocks went nowhere. The S&P 500  (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC  )  is lower today than it was in 2000. Dividends provided some return, but inflation eroded it out. It has been a dreadful decade for stocks.

But this chart might be the best rebuttal to the "lost decade" argument, and perhaps the most important chart of the past decade:

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

What we're looking at here is:

• The traditional S&P 500 (blue line).
• The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index, which owns the same 500 companies as the traditional S&P, but holds them in equal amounts. That's different from the traditional index, which weights companies by market cap, owning more of the largest companies and less of smaller ones.

Unlike the traditional S&P 500, the Equal Weight Index is at an all-time high. It's more than doubled since 2000, providing investors with a solid return.  (more)

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