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What is the stock market's average return? Worst, median and best for every holding period
The S&P 500 has risen 6.3% a year since 1928, without dividends. Over the last ten years it was +13.6% a year. The average hides the spread: over ten years the index has returned anywhere from −9.9% to +16.8% a year, and over one year from −70.1% to +146.3%.
S&P 500: worst to best period, percent a year
The average depends on how you count
Take each calendar year on its own and the plain average for the S&P 500 is 8.1% a year over 98 full years. Yet the index only grew 6.3% a year from start to today, to 418 times where it began.
The gap is there because ups and downs don't cancel out. A year of +50% followed by a year of −50% averages 0%, but $100 has become $75. That is why the rate a year shows what the money became, and it's the number used below.
What does a normal year look like?
There is hardly such a thing. The S&P 500 rose in 66 of 98 years, but only 6 years ended within two percentage points of the average. The worst was 1931 at −47.1% and the best 1954 at +45.0%.
| The year | S&P 500 | OMX Stockholm 30 |
|---|---|---|
| Below −20% | 6 | 0 |
| −20% to 0 | 25 | 4 |
| 0 to +10% | 15 | 5 |
| +10% to +20% | 24 | 3 |
| +20% or more | 28 | 5 |
Worst, median and best for every holding period
We count from every month-end since 1928, which gives 1,175 one-year periods and 947 twenty-year periods. The numbers are percent a year.
| Held for | Worst | Median | Best | Ended lower |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | −70.1% | +9.9% | +146.3% | 30% |
| 5 years | −22.0% | +8.0% | +29.5% | 20% |
| 10 years | −9.9% | +7.5% | +16.8% | 11% |
| 20 years | −3.6% | +7.1% | +14.4% | 3% |
Over one year 30% of the periods ended lower, over ten years 11% and over twenty years 3%. The worst twenty-year period began in August 1929, before the 1929 crash, and returned −3.6% a year without dividends. The last twenty-year period to end lower began in August 1930, and the last ten-year period in January 2001. How deep and how long the market fell along the way is in the study of every crash. Whether some months do better than others is tested in the Sell in May study. What it becomes with an amount every month is in the dollar cost averaging calculator, and how long it has taken, for more holding periods and in dollars, is in How long should you stay invested?.
The last ten years, and other start years
Each row counts from the last close before the start year to Nov 6, 2026. Over the last ten years, up to October 2026, the S&P 500 returned +13.6% a year and OMX Stockholm 30 +8.5%. The median of all ten-year periods for the S&P 500 is +7.5%.
| Start year | S&P 500 | OMX Stockholm 30 |
|---|---|---|
| 1928 | +6.3% | – |
| 1930 | +6.2% | – |
| 1940 | +7.6% | – |
| 1950 | +8.2% | – |
| 1960 | +7.5% | – |
| 1970 | +8.0% | – |
| 1980 | +9.4% | – |
| 1990 | +8.6% | – |
| 2000 | +6.2% | – |
| 2005 | +8.6% | – |
| 2009 | +12.5% | +9.4% |
| 2010 | +11.9% | +7.6% |
| 2015 | +11.4% | +7.0% |
| 2020 | +12.8% | +9.3% |
| 2025 | +13.0% | +16.0% |
Dividends come on top
The index numbers here leave out dividends, so someone who owned the companies received more.
For the S&P 500 there is an index with dividends reinvested. From Jan 4, 1988 it returned 11.3% a year, against 9.0% without them, or 2.3 percentage points more a year.
How price and dividends add up to a return is shown in the lesson on making money from stocks.
Company by company
The companies count with dividends reinvested, from the first close we hold, at the earliest from 2000. The spread is wide: from Palantir at +58.9% a year to Oracle at +6.2%. Of the 19 companies with at least ten years of history, 8 had some ten-year period that ended lower.
These are today's largest companies, so the table shows the ones that made it. Try a company and a start date in the if-I-had-invested calculator.
| Company | A year | Worst 10 years | Best 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palantir | +58.9% | – | – |
| Tesla | +39.3% | +28.1% | +69.0% |
| Broadcom | +37.9% | +30.3% | +44.6% |
| Nvidia | +33.0% | −4.6% | +80.6% |
| Netflix | +29.2% | +17.4% | +59.3% |
| Mastercard | +28.1% | +18.4% | +36.3% |
| Apple | +25.1% | +20.9% | +57.2% |
| Alphabet | +23.8% | +11.3% | +27.5% |
| Meta | +21.2% | +15.5% | +27.7% |
| Visa | +20.9% | +15.5% | +29.6% |
| Amazon | +16.3% | +5.6% | +44.5% |
| Eli Lilly | +14.9% | −7.6% | +36.5% |
| Costco | +14.2% | +1.5% | +24.8% |
| AMD | +13.4% | −25.5% | +61.5% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | +10.9% | +4.2% | +15.8% |
| JPMorgan Chase | +10.7% | −0.7% | +21.8% |
| Microsoft | +10.6% | −3.8% | +32.0% |
| Exxon Mobil | +8.9% | −3.5% | +13.6% |
| Walmart | +8.5% | −0.6% | +21.6% |
| Oracle | +6.2% | −6.9% | +24.7% |
Stockholm for comparison
Our history for OMX Stockholm 30 starts on Nov 20, 2008, near the bottom of the financial crisis, which lifts the average: 10.0% a year from the start, but 7.6% a year from the end of 2009. The plain average of its 17 full years is 10.1%, and it rose in 13 of them. The worst was 2022 at −15.6% and the best 2009 at +43.7%.
| Held for | Worst | Median | Best | Ended lower |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | −19.0% | +10.9% | +56.4% | 26% |
| 5 years | −2.3% | +7.7% | +16.4% | 3% |
| 10 years | +3.8% | +6.4% | +9.5% | 0% |
| 20 years | – | – | – | – |
The history isn't long enough for twenty years yet. Every ten-year period starts after the financial crisis, so the table holds no year like 2008. The worst ten-year period returned +3.8% a year.
How we counted
Too short a history for ten-year numbers: Palantir.
- Daily closes to Nov 6, 2026: the S&P 500 from Dec 30, 1927 and OMX Stockholm 30 from Nov 20, 2008.
- The S&P 500 index began in 1957. Numbers before that come from its predecessor with 90 companies.
- The rate a year is the steady pace that gives the same end value, not an average. The average is named separately.
- A period runs from the last close of one month to the same month a whole number of years later. The running month does not count.
- The periods overlap, so 1,175 one-year periods are not that many independent results. The years 1929–1932 sit in many of the worst.
- A calendar year counts from the last close of the year before. The running year is not in the average or in the table of years.
- Inflation is not taken out. Fees and tax are not included.
- The S&P 500 is in dollars, OMX Stockholm 30 in kronor and the companies in the currency the stock trades in.
- 20 of the 20 largest US companies on our list. Companies that went bankrupt or left the exchange are missing, so reality was harsher than the table.
You are welcome to use the numbers
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