average yearly return on stock market
Cambridge Histories Online Â© Cambridge University Press, 2008 The S&P 500 gauges the performance of the stocks of the 500 largest, most stable companies in the Stock Exchange. It is often considered the most accurate measure of the stock market as a whole. The current average annual return from 1926, the year of the S&Pâs inception, through 2011 is 11.69%. Thatâs a long look back, and most people arenât interested in what happened in the market 80 years ago.