$10,000 Invested in 1970 Is Worth Over $2.5 Million Today
The power of staying invested across five decades of crises
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 in January 1970 with dividends reinvested grew to approximately $2.5 million by 2024. This chart annotates every major crisis along the way — each felt like the end of the world at the time.
What history says
Editorial commentary written by ALAN analysts. Figures cited below are analyst-authored context — they are not derived from the chart above and may reflect different windows or sources.
This is the entire stock market, not a cherry-picked stock. An index fund investor who did literally nothing for 54 years achieved this outcome. Inaction was the strategy.
Stagflation (1970s), Volcker rates (1980-82), Black Monday (1987), LTCM (1998), 9/11 (2001), Lehman (2008), COVID (2020) — each generated 'this time is different' narratives. None were.
There has never been a 5-year period without a significant scare. Crises are a permanent feature of markets. Wealth accrues to those who endure them, not those who avoid them.
The return on this chart belonged only to investors who never converted a crisis into a sale, so direct your effort at protecting the holding period — automated contributions, adequate insurance, a spending reserve — rather than at perfecting the portfolio's contents.