From R. Shiller website: June 1901 real S&P price (CPI adj.) 190.88 July 1982 real S&P price (CPI adj.) 189.4 great stuff for mutual funds promotion
Okay, that word "flat" seemed to provoke some controversy here. What I'm getting at is from about 30 to 50 the market was in a 1X band sideways band for the most part. Yes, you could make money on that of course. But let's face it: probably any strategy you came up with post 82 would be questionable. That's all I was getting at...
You know, a respectable profession like lawyerin', politickin'.... Should be into Books-A-Million next Saturday, so am gettin' things lined out here.
Nothing worse than a NON-Logarithmic chart for that data set....Yale should know better. Talk about data manipulation.
"Flat" , trendy, etc. are only OBVIOUS with HINDSIGHT!!! Remember that. I'm sure the millions of investors during the 1910-1950 didn't feel it was "flat". It was quite a roller coaster ride for them to been through the biggest boomtime ever then have NATIONWIDE DEPRESSION that last almost a decade. Not only that, the world had two world wars. Hitler. Atomic bomb. TV. Radio. Lots of changes. The last thing on their mind was flat and boring. They felt it bounced up and down a lot. And still have painful memories of the 20-30s. Nothing is what it seems until AFTER the fact is obvious on the chart...
Taking DT's thought another step ... From 1871 to present, the real price of the S&P has a compound annual growth rate of 2%. If we also include dividends, the CAGR is still shy of 3%.