If You Invested in 1929

The worst possible moment to begin, and the one every argument about market risk eventually reaches for. What happened next is grimmer than the averages suggest and less grim than the folklore.

$10,000 invested in January 1929 would be $5,013,100 today, in 2026 money — 501.31× the original, or 6.58% a year after inflation over 97.5 years. Along the way it fell 76.8% from its peak, bottoming in Jun 1932.

Dividends are reinvested and the figure is adjusted by CPI; before inflation the same run returned 9.89% a year. It excludes fees and taxes and covers US large-cap stocks only.

Where 1929 ranks

Of the 155 years someone could have started in this record, 1929 ranks 145th on real annualised return. The median start year returned 7.19% a year; 1929 returned 6.58%, behind by 0.61% a year.

A gap that small looks negligible and is not. Over the 98 years since, the difference between this year’s return and the median compounds into a materially different ending balance — which is the case for caring when you start, and also the case for not trying to time it.

The ride, not just the return

6.58% a year is the summary. The experience was a 76.8% fall that bottomed in Jun 1932, and then 4.4 years to climb back to the peak it had before. Anyone who sold at the bottom locked in the loss and never saw the number at the top of this page.

One figure here is worth flagging because it contradicts a familiar claim. The often-repeated “it took 25 years to recover from 1929” describes the nominal price index with no dividends. On a real total-return basis — dividends reinvested, inflation removed, which is what this page measures — the recovery from the bottom was considerably faster. Both numbers are correct; they measure different things.

What you would have sat through

9 separate falls of more than 20% since 1929. Each one is a moment somebody sold.

Peak	Bottom	Fall	Took to fall	Back to peak
Sep 1929	Jun 1932	−76.8%	2.8 years	4.4 years
Feb 1937	Apr 1942	−48.3%	5.2 years	3.0 years
Apr 1946	Feb 1948	−35.4%	22 months	2.7 years
Dec 1961	Jun 1962	−21.8%	6 months	11 months
Dec 1968	Jun 1970	−31.7%	18 months	2.4 years
Jan 1973	Dec 1974	−50.1%	23 months	10.1 years
Aug 1987	Dec 1987	−26.7%	4 months	20 months
Aug 2000	Mar 2009	−51.8%	8.6 years	4.2 years
Nov 2021	Oct 2022	−24.5%	11 months	17 months

Decade by decade

The 6.58% average is made of 9 very different decades. Real annualised return for each ten years from 1929:

Decade	Real annualised	$10,000 became
1929–1939	0.58%	$10,595
1939–1949	2.17%	$12,395
1949–1959	17.58%	$50,505
1959–1969	7.44%	$20,496
1969–1979	-2.84%	$7,497
1979–1989	9.60%	$25,010
1989–1999	15.40%	$41,885
1999–2009	-4.36%	$6,403
2009–2019	11.98%	$31,003

Best of them: 17.58%. Worst: -4.36%. Anyone who judged the market on a single one of these decades would have drawn the wrong conclusion about the others.

Nominal against real

Basis	Annualised	$10,000 became
Real (after inflation)	6.58%	$5,013,100
Nominal (before inflation)	9.89%	—

The real figure is the one worth planning on. To see what inflation did to a fixed sum over the same stretch, measure the purchasing power of $10,000 from 1929 to today on the same CPI series.

Change the assumptions

This page fixes one set of inputs so it can say something specific. For a different amount, a monthly contribution, a different end date or any start month at all, run the backtest with your own figures. To see how 1929 compares with every other starting point rather than just its rank, look at the full distribution of rolling returns by holding period.

Other starting years

compare it with a 1950 start.

Common questions

What would $10,000 invested in 1929 be worth today?

$5,013,100 in today's money — 501.31 times the original amount — assuming it went into the S&P 500 in January 1929 with dividends reinvested and stayed there. That is 6.58% a year after inflation over 97.5 years. Before inflation the same run returned 9.89% a year, which is the larger and less useful number.

Was 1929 a good year to start investing?

It ranks 145th of 155 start years in the record, so worse than most. The median start year returned 7.19% a year in real terms against this year's 6.58% — behind by 0.61% a year. Compounded over decades that gap is much larger than it sounds.

What was the worst drop for someone who started in 1929?

The portfolio fell 76.8% from its peak, bottoming in Jun 1932. From that bottom it took 4.4 years to get back to where it had been. That is the part a single annualised return hides, and it is the part people actually have to live through.

Does this include dividends and inflation?

Both. Dividends are reinvested monthly, and the headline figure is real — adjusted by CPI to 2026 dollars — because that is what the money can actually buy. It excludes fees and taxes, and covers US large-cap stocks only.

S&P Composite total return, dividends reinvested, 1871-01 to 2026-07, deflated by CPI. Before fees and taxes; US large-cap only. Past returns describe what already happened and are not a forecast. Source: Robert J. Shiller, Online Data (shillerdata.com) — S&P Composite, dividends and CPI, monthly from 1871. Estimates for general information only — not financial, tax, or investment advice. Permalinks exist for start years with at least 10 years of data.