$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at the start of 2000 was worth $9,086 at the end of 2009. That is a return of -1.0% a year for ten years, measured as total return: the change in the index plus every dividend, reinvested. The figures here are nominal, meaning before inflation, unless they say otherwise, and they come from the annual S&P 500 series published by Aswath Damodaran at NYU Stern, measured at each year-end.
After inflation the result is worse. In start-of-2000 dollars, the same investment was worth $7,081, or -3.4% a year. Without dividends, counting only the index price, $10,000 became $7,590, so reinvested dividends added about $1,500 over the decade.
This article replays that decade year by year, using the same annual returns as the S&P 500 calculator, then looks at what happened to an investor who kept holding, one who invested monthly instead, and how often the US market has lost money over ten and twenty years.
Two bear markets took the decade
The first fall came as three negative years in a row. Total returns were -9.0% in 2000, -11.8% in 2001 and -22.0% in 2002. Compounded, they turned $10,000 into $6,257 by the end of 2002, 37.4% below the starting amount. The index then returned 28.4% in 2003 and kept rising through 2007.
The second fall was shorter and almost as deep. From the end of 2007 to the end of 2008, the cumulative total return dropped 36.6%, and it did not climb back above its 2007 level until the end of 2012. Both falls are measured on year-end values, so the lowest points inside each year were deeper than these figures show.
How the replay works, and what it can't see
The series runs from 1928 to 2025, with inflation from the US Consumer Price Index (FRED). Because the data is annual, the replay spreads each year's return evenly across its twelve months, and monthly contributions are added at the start of each month.
That convention doesn't change the lump-sum figures, which depend only on the yearly returns. It does affect the monthly-investing figures below: the replay can't see that prices fell sharply in one month and recovered in another, so a monthly investor's results are an approximation of what real monthly prices would have produced. We checked it against Robert Shiller's monthly S&P data with dividends: the counts of winning ten-, twenty- and thirty-year windows below come out the same, and the 2000 to 2009 end values below come out 1% to 4% higher.
Investors who held past 2009 recovered the loss, slowly
The end year changes the story. The same $10,000 from the start of 2000 was worth $12,345 at the end of 2012, $18,774 at the end of 2015, and $73,856 at the end of 2025, a return of 8.0% a year over the full period.
The year 2000 is one of the worst starting years in the record, picked here with hindsight. 2008 is a different case: a single very bad year, the worst in the record after 1931. $10,000 invested at the start of 2008 was worth $6,345 at the end of that year, when the index returned -36.6%. The following years returned 25.9%, 14.8% and 2.1%, and the investment was back above $10,000 at the end of 2012. By the end of 2025 it was worth $64,947, about 6.5 times the original amount.
Monthly investing won this decade, which is unusual
Dollar-cost averaging means investing a fixed amount on a schedule, such as every month, whatever the price. $500 a month from 2000 through 2009 added up to $60,000 in contributions, worth $63,136 at the end of 2009: about $3,100 more than was paid in. The same total invested all at once at the start of 2000 was worth $54,518. Over this decade, investing monthly came out about $8,600 ahead.
The timing of the falls explains it. The lump sum was fully invested for both bear markets. The monthly investor bought more shares in 2002 and 2008, when prices were low, and those shares gained in the rebounds that followed: 28.4% in 2003 and 25.9% in 2009.
Across the whole record the result usually goes the other way. Of the 89 ten-year windows from 1928 onward, the lump sum ended ahead in 82 and monthly investing in 7, because the market rose in most years and money invested earlier had longer to grow. The comparison also assumes the whole amount was available on the first day. For someone investing part of each paycheck, there is no lump sum to compare against.
Losing decades are rare, and in this record no 20-year stretch lost money
Short-term losses are common in this data. The total return was negative in 26 of the 98 calendar years from 1928 to 2025. Longer periods are measured with rolling windows: every possible period of a given length, starting one year later each time. Of the 89 rolling ten-year windows, 5 ended with a loss before inflation, 2000 to 2009 among them. Of the 79 rolling 20-year windows, none did. The worst, 1929 to 1948, included the Great Depression and World War II and returned 2.4% a year before inflation and 0.6% a year after it.
Two limits apply to that result. The rolling windows overlap, so the record holds only 4 complete, separate 20-year periods. And it is one country's market over one century, which shows what happened, not what will happen. These figures are historical data, not investment advice.
Fees and taxes would put a real-world account below these figures
The replay is a gross figure, before costs. A fund's expense ratio is deducted from the balance every year. Taking it once a year from $10,000 invested at the start of 2000, an expense ratio of 1% would have left about $56,900 at the end of 2025 instead of $73,856. An expense ratio of 0.03% would have left about $73,300.
Taxes depend on the account. In a taxable US brokerage account, dividends are taxed in the year they are paid, which reduces what gets reinvested. In an IRA or a 401(k) they are not taxed each year. Trading costs and any selling during the falls would lower the result further.
Every figure here can be rerun
The lump-sum figures can be checked by hand. Take the annual total returns for 2000 to 2009 from the free CSV, multiply the yearly growth factors (1 plus each year's return), and $10,000 times the product is $9,086. Every year's return is listed in S&P 500 historical returns.
To replay your own case, open the S&P 500 calculator set to a 2000 start, then change the start year to 2008 or the year you began, and add the monthly amount you invest.
