Sharemarkets have generated attractive returns over the long term, but these have not come consistently. Photo / 123rf
Sharemarkets have generated attractive returns over the long term, but these have not come consistently. Photo / 123rf
OPINION
Shares have delivered impressive long-term returns.
The United States is the biggest market in the world and its long history lends itself well to analysis.
Between 1900 and today, US shares have returned 9.8 per cent a year (including dividends). That means an investor has, on average, doubled theirmoney every 7.4 years.
That’s a recipe for wealth generation and an excellent way to ensure your capital grows by more than inflation (which has been 3 per cent a year over that entire period) and your purchasing power is maintained.
However, what’s equally interesting is to consider the typical return in any given calendar year. I did that and the results surprised me.
We know the average return since 1900 is just shy of 10 per cent, so we can probably take a couple of per cent either side of that and assume a good portion of the almost 124 years since then will fall into that returns zone, right?
In all those 124 years, there were merely four where the return was between 8 and 12 per cent, despite the overall average being very close to 10.
Take a minute to process that. Just four times.
Those years were 1912, 1993, 2004 and 2016. Every other year has been outside that range, in many cases by quite a wide margin.
There have been 32 years when the market was down, including seven examples of it being down more than 10 per cent and another eight where it was more than 20 per cent lower.
Predictably, the worst two years were 1931 (when US shares fell 39.3 per cent) and 2008 (when the market slumped 37 per cent during the GFC).
It’s not all bad though.
For a start, the market has gone up most of the time, with 92 positive years out of those 124, a very reasonable hit rate of 74 per cent.
There have been 46 years in which US shares have risen more than 20 per cent (including this year), which is more than a third of the time.
That includes 16 years in which it gained more than 30 per cent and four in which it rallied more than 40 per cent.
In short, the average sharemarket return has been about 10 per cent, but returns are rarely close to that average. There’s huge variance, with little consistency from one year to the next.
When you hear people talk about the highly attractive returns sharemarkets have generated over the long term, they’re not exaggerating.
The NZX has unveiled a new high-tech electronic ticker on the New Zealand Capital Markets Centre building at 45 Queen Street, Auckland. Photo / Supplied
It’s just that these returns don’t come consistently.
As a share investor, you’ll do very well over the long term, there’s no question about it, but year-in, year-out anything can happen.
Don’t be put off by such variability; this is simply the price we pay for those above-average returns.
The market goes up in three out of four years and it’s been almost six times more likely to see a 20 per cent rise (that’s happened 46 times) than a 20 per cent decline (just eight times since 1900).
The lesson is always the same. Stay the course, understand (and accept) the risk and return trade-off and keep your eye on the long game.
If you can do that, history is on your side and you’ll succeed as a share investor.
Mark Lister is investment director at Craigs Investment Partners. The information in this article is provided for information only, is intended to be general in nature, and does not take into account your financial situation, objectives, goals, or risk tolerance. Before making any investment decision Craigs Investment Partners recommends you contact an investment adviser.
