Maybe I’m missing something, but the S&P 500’s annualized rate of return (adjust for inflation, dividends reinvested) is around 11% since 2009. 6% since 2002, and 8% since 1996. It seems we’re doing just fine in the long run?

Why all this worry about the next 10 years averaging 3% nominally? Even real returns?We’ve been on a bull-run, sure, but these calculations take into account the dips and our current high, which still show average returns over those years (when it should be the upper bound of what an investor can expect). So if we use that as our likelihood of high/low returns for the next decade, we can say that the likelihood of high/low returns aren’t that much higher than any other point in time. If anything, it doesn’t seem high, just slightly above average. For reference, what I consider good returns are like 5-6% real, not what the last couple years brought.

With all the news and articles I’m seeing, people think the US is doing too well as always when in reality we’re doing basically just as well even with the most profitable industry in history (tech).

Correction: 11% real average returns since 2011 are quite high, yes, but that’s from the bottom of the dip to now. And if we zoom out, the bottom of the last 2 dips to now give us more modest returns. My point in picking the bottoms of every 10 year period was to showcase the upper bounds of returns.