Why are we excluding dividends? It's a component of total return.capran wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:14 am That is very true. The two recent bull markets have been a windfall, even by historical standards, so timing has worked to your advantage. And I suppose it is impossible for the markets to ever return to a period similar to the 1929 to 1949 period. The ending price of the S&P500 in the 1920-30 bull market was 25.92. Even with all the bear and bull markets in between, even the bull market of May 1947 to June of 1948 produced a closing price high of only 17.06! It wasn't until the bull market from June of 1949 to August of 1956 when the market finally got above what it closed at in April 1930. Just imagine being 60 years old in 1930, and the share price of your stock on April 10,1930 was 25.92! And the bull market that ended on June 15, 1948, at age 78, had a closing price of 17.06!!!! Maybe a more realistic possibility, and more recent, was what occurred in 2000. Recalling that the longest bull market was from December 1987 to March of 2000, with a closing price of 1527.46. It did not return to that price until toward the end of the bull that began on October 9, 2002 and ended at 1565.15 on October 9, 2007. To be exact, the market on May 30, 2007 closed for the first time above the 1527.46 of March 2000 level. If you were a retiree in 2000, one could assume excluding dividends, that your balance was nearly the same in March of 2000 and May of 2007.
There as a positive real return from 1930 to 1948, even though the price dropped by nearly 8 over that time.