User:LadyGeek/Callan periodic table of investment returns

The LadyGeek/Callan periodic table of investment returns is patterned after Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements and features well-known, industry-standard market indices as proxies for each asset class.

The table shows returns for ten asset classes, ranked from best to worst. Each asset class is color-coded for easy tracking.. It was created in 1999 by Jay Kloepfer.

Overview

The chart is intended to show the importance of diversification across asset classes (stocks versus bonds), investment styles (growth versus value), capitalizations (large versus small) and equity markets (U.S. versus international).

Refer to the table below. The rankings change every year, thereby demonstrating two key principles of investing:

• Diversification: by owning the entire market (all of the asset classes), susceptibility to changes in market returns is minimized.
• Past performance does not predict future performance.

View full size ©2021 by Callan LLC. Reprinted with permission.

History and changes

The composition of the table has changed over the years.

Year	Changes made
1999	Created with eight (8) asset classes.
2010	Emerging markets asset class added, bring number to nine.
2013	the addition of Barclay's Corporate high yield brought the total to ten.
2017	"MSCI World ex USA" replaced "MSCI EAFE". The entire table was rebuilt using "MSCI World ex USA".
2019	The S&P 500 Growth, S&P 500 Value, Russel 2000 Growth, and Russel 2000 Value were replaced with Global Bonds ex-US, Cash equivalent (90 day T-Bills), and Real Estate. The entire table was rebuilt.

The prior spreadsheets are at Callan Periodic Chart 2017: Dispersion of Asset Class Returns and Callan Periodic Table 2017: Statistics

How to read the table

For example: Real estate (a measure of the stock performance of companies engaged in specific real estate activities in the North American, European, and Asian real estate markets). Starting at the left side, this measure ranked:

• 2001 - 7th
• 2002 - 2003 - 3rd (2 consecutive years)
• 2004 - 1st
• 2005 - 2nd
• 2006 - 1st
• 2007 - 9th
• 2008 - 8th
• 2009 - 3rd
• 2010 - 2nd
• 2011 - 7th
• 2012 - 1st
• 2013 - 5th
• 2014 - 1st
• 2015 - 4th
• 2016 - 5th
• 2017 - 2018 - 6th (2 consecutive years)
• 2019 - 4th
• 2020 - 9th

Putting the table into perspective

Periodic tables provide a great visual about diversification benefits, but tend to be more qualitative than quantitative. The simple ranking from best to worse notably does not allow one to easily appreciate the scaling of annual returns. The effect of compounding over the long-term is also hard to perceive with such per-annum table.

The following graphs are therefore useful to put such a periodic table in perspective.

Notes: Created with Python Jupyter Notebook. See: Bogleheads® forum post: Re: [wiki] Callan periodic table of investment returns, jsprag. Jan 24, 2021

Source: Callan Periodic Table: Statistics - Google Sheets

Source: Callan Periodic Table: Statistics - Google Sheets

Source: Callan Periodic Table: Statistics - Google Sheets

Create your own periodic table

A spreadsheet for creating your own periodic table is available in this Bogleheads® forum topic: Playing with Callan's periodic tables of investment returns.

The latest version and download instructions are in this post, which is a direct download from Google Drive.

Detailed instructions and revision history are in the "README" tab.

See also

• Risk and return: an introduction
• Reversion to the mean

External links

• Periodic table of annual returns, on finiki, the Canadian financial wiki. Total returns for Canadian investors.
• Periodic Tables, by Callan LLC. Includes links to the "classic" table, a collection of tables ("classic"and 10 additional versions including the indices relative to inflation, real estate indices, and hedge fund sub-strategies), and a table of monthly rankings.
• The Importance of Diversification, asset classes for the past ten years, from Allianz Global Investors - Literature Center.
• Periodic Table of Investments, asset classes for the past ten years, from Janus Henderson Investors
• Periodic table of sector returns from usfunds.com, covers years 2005 - 2014.
• Periodic table of commodity returns from usfunds.com, covers years 2001 - 2010.

Forum discussions

• Bogleheads® forum topic: [wiki] Callan periodic table of investment returns, LadyGeek. Jan 16, 2021
• Bogleheads® forum topic: 2017 Callan Periodic Table of Investment Returns, triceratop. Jan 06, 2018
• Bogleheads® forum topic: 2015 Asset Class Returns, Tamales. Jan 01, 2016. A comprehensive list of asset class returns compiled by forum member Tamales.

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