Historical Returns for Stocks, Bonds, Cash, Real Estate and Gold (2025)
I will do my annual ritual of reviewing historical return data now that we have turned the calendar another year.
Some people have choices. I have spreadsheets.
Aswath Damodaran reviews the annual returns of stocks, bonds, cash, gold and real estate at NYU each year going back to 1928.
I love slicing and dialing this dataset.
Here are the updated earnings by the end of 2025 (and inflation for good measure):
Now here are the returns by decade going back to the 1930s:
Gold and stocks have both had an amazing decade so far. Bonds…not so much.
It is also interesting to note that as painful as the inflation rate is in the 2020s, it was higher in the 1940s, 1970s and 1980s. We are not that far from the historical average of 3%.1
I’ve noted this before but I like regular reminders – in 4 of the last 50 years, the stock market has delivered more than double-digit average annual returns. As painful as the lost decade from 2000-2009 was, the last five decades have seen incredible returns for investors in risky assets.
If you go back another decade, gold has had double-digit annual returns in 3 of the last 6 decades. Yellow metal was feast or famine when you look at the return numbers of the decade.
Now, for another tradition of the year – here’s a scatterplot of S&P 500 returns from 1928-2025:
The stock market in any given year is unpredictable.
Asset class returns in any given decade are often unpredictable as well.
If we look at these numbers again next year the profits for the year 2026 are anyone’s guess.
But the long-term benefits won’t change much.
There is a lesson in that dichotomy.
Further reading:
Is This The Worst Decade Ever For Bonds?
1Send your inflation hate mail to dontshootthemessenger@nope.com
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