Stock Market At Inflation-Adjusted All-Time High

I can’t be absolutely certain of this but I’m reasonably confident in reporting that the total real return of the U.S. stock finally reached an all-time high today. By this, I mean adjusting for dividends and inflation, we took out the old peak from 13 years ago.

Note: The above chart goes to the end of 2012.

Here are some numbers: The Wilshire 5000 Total Return Index has increased by 35.41% from March 24, 2000 to today. Meanwhile, the CPI has increased by 34.1% from March 2000 through December 2012. The numbers for January won’t come out until later this month. Despite this, it would be a noticeable break from the recent trend for the January CPI to knock out the small lead that stocks appear to enjoy.

So raise a glass to stocks. It only took 13 years to make a real profit. A very, very, very, very small (but real) profit.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 8th, 2013 at 4:53 pm

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