Is an S and P 500 index a good investment?
Is an S&P 500 index fund a good investment? As long as your time horizon is three to five years or longer, an S&P 500 index fund could be a good addition to your portfolio. However, any investment can produce poor returns if it's purchased at overvalued prices.
Investing in an S&P 500 fund can instantly diversify your portfolio and is generally considered less risky. S&P 500 index funds or ETFs will track the performance of the S&P 500, which means when the S&P 500 does well, your investment will, too. (The opposite is also true, of course.)
Lack of Global Diversification
The S&P 500 is all US-domiciled companies that over the last ~40 years have accounted for ~50% of all global stocks. By just owning the S&P 500 you miss out on almost half of the global opportunity set which is another ~10,000 public companies.
You can't directly invest in the index itself, but you can buy individual stocks of S&P 500 companies, or buy a S&P 500 index fund through a mutual fund or ETF. The latter is ideal for beginner investors since they provide broad market exposure and diversification at a low cost.
Assuming an average annual return rate of about 10% (a typical historical average), a $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 could potentially grow to approximately $25,937 over 10 years.
Meanwhile, if you only invest in S&P 500 ETFs, you won't beat the broad market. Rather, you can expect your portfolio's performance to be in line with that of the broad market. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. See, over the past 50 years, the S&P 500 has delivered an average annual 10% return.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $5,971.20, or a gain of 497.12%, as of February 5, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 178.17% and gold's return of 55.50% over the same time frame.
When a stock's price falls to zero, a shareholder's holdings in this stock become worthless. Major stock exchanges actually delist shares once they fall below specific price values. The New York Stock exchange (NYSE), for instance, will remove stocks if the share price remains below one dollar for 30 consecutive days.
If you're new to investing, you can absolutely start off by buying index funds alone as you learn more about how to choose the right stocks. But as your knowledge grows, you may want to branch out and add different companies to your portfolio that you feel align well with your personal risk tolerance and goals.
Returns for the 60/40 portfolio — traditionally split between the S&P 500 Index of stocks (60%) and 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds (40%) — will probably be limited. That's because the stock market is already priced for a soft landing, and markets are already pricing many rate cuts.
How much would $1000 invested in the S&P 500 in 1980 be worth today?
In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.
“When you buy the S&P 500, 90% of the time you're likely to outperform an active portfolio manager picking large-cap stocks,” says Joe Favorito, managing partner at Landmark Wealth Management. The best way to invest in the S&P 500 is to buy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or index funds that track the index.
Stock Market Average Yearly Return for the Last 10 Years
The historical average yearly return of the S&P 500 is 12.68% over the last 10 years, as of the end of February 2024. This assumes dividends are reinvested. Adjusted for inflation, the 10-year average stock market return (including dividends) is 9.56%.
Returns in the S&P 500 over the coming decade are more likely to be in the 3%-6% range, as multiples and margins are unlikely to expand, leaving sales growth, buybacks, and dividends as the main drivers of appreciation.
The S&P 500 returned 345% over the last two decades, compounding at 7.7% annually. But with dividends reinvested, the S&P 500 delivered a total return of 546% over the same period, compounding at 9.8% annually. Investors can get direct, inexpensive exposure to the index with a fund like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF.
| Period | Average annualised return | Total return |
|---|---|---|
| Last year | 30.7% | 30.7% |
| Last 5 years | 15.9% | 109.5% |
| Last 10 years | 15.7% | 331.4% |
| Last 20 years | 10.8% | 682.2% |
Looking at the S&P 500 for the years 1993 to mid-2023, the average stock market return for the last 30 years is 9.90% (7.22% when adjusted for inflation). Some of this success can be attributed to the dot-com boom in the late 1990s (before the bust), which resulted in high return rates for five consecutive years.
Think About This: $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2000 would have grown to $32,527 over 20 years — an average return of 6.07% per year.
That does not mean the S&P 500 always goes up. The index has gone down and will continue to go down in certain years. But if growth during the last three decades was spread evenly across that 30-year period, the index would have increased at 10.3% annually.
| Discount Rate | Present Value | Future Value |
|---|---|---|
| 6% | $1,000 | $3,207.14 |
| 7% | $1,000 | $3,869.68 |
| 8% | $1,000 | $4,660.96 |
| 9% | $1,000 | $5,604.41 |
How much is $10,000 in Tesla 10 years ago?
A $10,000 investment in Tesla back in April of 2014 would now be worth roughly $121,460 right now -- and that's even factoring in the stock's pullback this year.
How a monthly investment of $300 could grow into $618,900. The S&P 500 returned 164% over the last decade, or about 10% per year. At that pace, $300 invested monthly in an S&P 500 index fund would be worth about $60,000 in one decade, $215,400 in two decades, and $618,900 in three decades.
Can't the S&P 500 lose money? As with any investment, S&P 500 index funds carry the risk of losing money, particularly in the short term. In 2022, for instance, the S&P 500 fell by more than 18%. But historically, the S&P 500 has always recovered from its losses.
| Recession Start Date | S&P 500 Peak Decline |
|---|---|
| July 1990 | (20%) |
| March 2001 | (37%) |
| December 2007 | (57%) |
| February 2020 | (34%) |
Disadvantages of Using the S&P 500 as a Benchmark
Also, the index contains only larger market-cap companies from the U.S.4 In contrast, investors may own small-cap or foreign companies in their portfolios. Using the S&P 500 as a benchmark may be an inaccurate measure of portfolio return for individual investors.
