S&P 500 Annual Total Return (with Dividends)

## What this measures

The total return on the S&P 500 in each calendar year since 1928: the change in the index over the year plus the dividends paid during it, as a percent of the index's level at the start of the year. One reading per year, dated December 31.

## Why it matters

It is what an investor holding the U.S. large-company market earned in a year, before costs and taxes. Price-only series leave out dividends, which were a larger part of the return in the middle of the last century than they are today. It is the standard base for long-run questions: average returns, how often stocks fall, and how they have done in particular kinds of years.

## How to read it

Percent for the year. Up years far outnumber down years, but the spread is wide: single years run from losses of more than a third (1931, 1937, 2008) to a gain of more than half (1954). Compare with the 3-month T-bill and 10-year T-bond returns from the same file (rates.us.tbill_3m.annual_return, rates.us.tbond_10y.annual_return) to see what stocks paid over safer assets, and with the price-only calendar-year return (equities.sp500.calendar_year_return) to see what dividends added.

## What it does not say

The S&P 500 was created in 1957; earlier years use the large-company indexes Professor Damodaran uses to extend it back. Returns are nominal (not adjusted for inflation) and before fees and taxes. Dividends are added in the year they are paid, without reinvestment during the year. Averages of annual returns are noisy: one or two extreme years move an average of a few dozen years by several points, so differences between such averages are rarely meaningful. The file is revised when he updates it.

## Source

Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern (histretSP): Historical Returns on Stocks, Bonds and Bills, https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histret.html. Shown with Professor Damodaran's permission, with credit; the data is not redistributed. Refreshed monthly by Palanor; he adds each new year in January.