Chart of the Day: 30 Years of Faith

Today’s Chart of the Day comes from an article written by Ben Carlson on A Wealth of Common Sense. The chart shows rolling 30-year returns of the stock market dating back to 1926. The lowest return for a 30-year period still had an impressive annual return of 7.8% or a total return of 850%. This is true even if you were unfortunate enough to invest at the peak of the 1920’s.

You may say, "Thirty years is a long time." But, with all the advances in healthcare, 30 years could easily be achievable for someone in their 60’s, and certainly by someone younger.

The next nearly 100 years may not look anything like the past. Hopefully we will not experience losses like we did in WWII, the Dot.com Crash, 9/11, or the Great Recession, and we will realize gains from new inventions such as the internet, cloud computing, and cell phones.

However, we have to have faith, and remember Winston Churchill’s quote, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried.”