10-Year Performance Figures

I thought I would pass along these one and ten-year performance figures for various asset classes, which was published in the Wall Street Journal. A couple of observations:

• Many investors have known for a while that the decade could actually see stocks decline in value, but did we realize the S&P 500 was close to losing 25% and the NASDAQ nearly 45%?

• With the exception of oil and gold, all asset categories had a relatively difficult decade. For example, the +88.0% rate of return achieved by junk bonds over the ten year period equates to just a 6.5% annualized return. Considering that the average rate of return on stocks over the past 100 years has been close to 10% per year, it was hard to make money during the 2000’s.