Markets · Historical
A century of stocks vs. bonds.
Pick an amount and a starting year. We’ll show how stocks and bonds grew from 1928 through 2025 — both before and after inflation.
Stocks
S&P 500 · with dividends
Bonds
Moody's Aaa Corporate Bond Index
US Treasuries / HYSA
10-year US Treasury
Over this span the dollar lost 94.7% of its purchasing power (CPI rose ×18.9). Real values restate end balances in 1928 dollars.
In inflation-adjusted terms, an investment in the S&P 500 produced 93.9 times more wealth than Aaa corporate bonds.
Growth of $1 — real (inflation-adjusted)
Crises & events timeline →The Track Record
Stocks can disappoint in any single year. Over longer stretches, the math has been remarkably one-sided.
of 10-year periods, stocks beat both bonds and inflation
73 of 89 rolling windows since 1928
of 20-year periods, stocks had the highest value
78 of 79 rolling windows since 1928
of 30-year periods, stocks won — every single time
69 of 69 rolling windows since 1928
Based on every overlapping 10-, 20-, and 30-year period beginning from 1928 through 2025. “Won” means the highest ending value among stocks, bonds, and cash adjusted for inflation.
"The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily."
What is a stock?
A stock is ownership in a real business. When you buy the S&P 500, you own small pieces of roughly 500 large American companies. Your return comes from dividends, earnings growth, and what investors are willing to pay for those future earnings. Stocks can be volatile in the short run, but over time, owners of productive businesses have historically been rewarded for taking that risk.
What is a bond?
A bond is a loan. You lend money to a government or company, and they agree to pay you interest and return your principal at a set date. Bonds are usually more predictable than stocks, but their upside is limited. They are often the ballast in a portfolio, not the engine.
US Treasuries are bonds issued by the federal government and backed by its full faith and credit. They are widely treated as the benchmark “safe” asset because the Treasury can tax and borrow in its own currency. The 10-year Treasury is often used as the yardstick for long-term safe yield.
A high-yield savings account (HYSA) is an FDIC-insured bank deposit that typically follows short-term interest rates. It is not built to grow wealth, but it is useful for cash reserves: safe, liquid, and easy to access.
Why equities are so powerful.
Equities compound on the right side of human progress. A bond pays a fixed coupon. A business can reinvest profits, hire better people, build new products, expand into new markets, and earn more next year than it did this year. When you own stocks, you own that growth.
That growth also helps fight inflation. A bond’s coupon is fixed in dollars, so rising prices can eat into it. A business can raise prices, grow revenue, and pass some inflation through to customers. Over long periods, that is the difference between preserving purchasing power and multiplying it.
The cost of admission is volatility. Stocks can fall 20%, 30%, or even 50%. But selling during those drops turns temporary declines into permanent losses. Staying invested — and continuing to buy — is what allows compounding to keep working.
The quiet lesson of market history
Headlines change. Recessions, wars, panics, bubbles, and crashes come and go. Yet over long periods, equities have historically absorbed them and continued higher. That is the strongest argument for staying invested through the next set of headlines, whatever they turn out to be.
Source: Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern), Historical Returns on Stocks, Bonds and Bills, updated January 2026. T-Bills use the year's average rate; the T-Bond series is the 10-year Treasury total return; S&P 500 includes reinvested dividends. CPI-U from BLS. Past performance is not a forecast.