For years now, market strategists — and financial columnists, for that matter — have been warning investors to expect low returns. Nevertheless, stocks have delivered great results.
Over the five years through Thursday, the S&P 500 has earned an average of 14.6% annually, including dividends; in the last 12 months, it’s up 16.7%. The louder the warnings became, the better stocks have performed.
In their latest survey of global investment returns, released this week, financial researchers Elroy Dimson of Cambridge Judge Business School, and Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton of London Business School explore why….
Read the rest of the column
This article was originally published on The Wall Street Journal.
Further reading
Jason Zweig, Your Money and Your Brain
Jason Zweig, The Devil’s Financial Dictionary
Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
William Deringer, Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age
Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, and Mike Staunton, Triumph of the Optimists: 101 Years of Global Investment Returns