Oddbean new post about | logout
 I don't agree that this is entirely true. I don't think the top 500 businesses in the world produce zero real return. certainly it isn't 100% real either but don't agree it is 0% 
 True, that is an average. If you invested in certain companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon,  NVIDiA or Berkshire they generated real returns but many others didn’t by far. 
 Over the last 5 years the M2 money supply has grown at a rate of 6.6% on average, the S&P 500 has grown at 13.4% on average.

Clearly inflation is a large portion of the return, but it isn't all of it. The stock market produces real return. 
 ** if you include re-investing dividends, you'd be at 15%-16% return on the S&P over the last 5 years. 
 If you look over a longer timeframe than just 5 years it gets closer. 😉
But I agree that good companies produce real returns but the index average not really over decades. 
 arguably it would be more favorable to your case just looking at the past 5 years as the money supply has greatly increased.

since 1960 M2 is 6.88%. nominal  stocks are around 10-11%. so a real return has been made to the stock investor