Below is a Wilshire REIT return calculator. It estimates returns on money invested in the Wilshire REIT Index, an index comprised of American Real Estate Investment Trusts. It approximates the returns of most large commercial and industrial property REITs.
As Wilshire puts it, the Wilshire REIT Index is "[d]esigned to offer a market-based index that is more reflective of real estate held by pension funds". It covers an impressive range of large REITs in the United States.
The Wilshire REIT Index avoids most residential, timber, and real estate broker REITs. It's more of a pure play on commercial and industrial real estate and removes some interest rate risk inherent in other REIT types.
It's an excellent proxy for the health of large REITs - or high end real estate in the US. Our calculator gives a reasonable reinvested return estimate on the index, sans taxes, fees, slippage, and other incidentals.
Results are for educational and research purposes, and we can't guarantee their accuracy. (Even ignoring taxes, fees, slippage and other incidentals.)
The Wilshire REIT Index is copyright Wilshire, and provided via the St. Louis Fed's FRED API. For accurate data, please check what Wilshire can provide.
We included an inflation component in returns. It extrapolates/interpolates daily inflation numbers by adjusting CPI. That methodology can be found on the page of the original daily inflation calculator.
We also have calculators for various other investment and economic concepts. Here are a few you might enjoy next:
Below is an S&P 500 Periodic Reinvestment Calculator. You can run through investment scenarios as if you had been invested in the past. It includes estimates – if you want to include them – for dividends paid, dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, management fees, and inflation.
Click the button labeled 'Click to Show Advance' to show the tool's advanced options.
These fields are pre-populated by the tool and we have no way to save your inputs on the server. Please make sure you back them up – paste them somewhere – if you are running a complex scenario!
The tool's designed for you to set up your own defaults as two columns in your favorite spreadsheet program, then just select both columns and paste directly into the tool's text box:
The tool uses data published by Robert Shiller, which you can find here. Our S&P 500 methodology from our S&P 500 Reinvestment Calculator and Dow Jones Industrial Average Reinvestment Calculator is repeated; please read those articles if you are interested in the return calculations.
On top of the above features, we've added periodic investments, dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, graphing, and exporting results in monthly resolution.
Here is our order of operations for every month other than the first month. In the first month, we buy shares at the market price using the lump sum, receive no dividends, and pay no fees or taxes)
When we hit the closing month:
Now that you've seen our methodology, a disclaimer:
Everything about this tool is informational and all outputs and calculations are for research purposes only. McGraw Hill Financial owns the S&P 500 Index and decides its constituent members, you should defer to them for all exact numbers, timings, and dates.
Double check all numbers output from the tool with your own calculations using source data from elsewhere. We've made every effort to present accurate information, but this calculator is maintained by a single hobbyist.
There are likely errors and omissions in the data. Even when the data is accurate, choosing different timings and orderings for the steps listed above can meaningfully change the final results of the calculations. Proceed at your own risk.
You can check the last updated month by seeing what was set when you opened the page. It should automatically go to the latest data.
Unfortunately, we have to update manually (for now) so expect about once a month updates. We have a number of calculators pointing to the same file, so when I update one they all pick up the new data automatically; we don't have to touch each one individually:
If you come back and the default dates have changed, you'll know it has recently been updated.
Robert Shiller is our source, and his methodology can be found on his site. This data is reasonably accurate and I trust it, but it isn't exact and official.
McGraw Hill Financial owns the S&P 500 Index; if you want more specific data on dividend timing or daily data you should seek it out from them.
See Robert Shiller's site (one question above). Dates before the index are spliced to indexes which reasonably measure similar stocks.
If you really don't like it, you can limit your analysis to more recent years.
No, but you can. It is very easy to fill the custom advanced option fields when you use a spreadsheet program to set it up.
Here's what I use (OpenOffice) - it's free. I used it to test this calculator (on a Mac), so I can vouch for it. Just paste into the fields in the advanced options.
No, but you can. Try OpenOffice - it's free or Excel to lay out the dates for easy cut/paste into the tool.
See the above answer, and note that when you do custom investment amounts the tool will only fill in investment amounts of the months you enter, so you can do as many or as few as you want!
There are so many index funds with so many different management fees that it's impossible to have a good number. These are a reasonable start, but even today there is a huge disparity in what different funds cost to manage an index fund. Just change them if you don't like them, or start from a later date when they better match your expectations.
No idea - I assume that would be the tracking error and management fee cost of large funds mimicking indexes or something. I made them up. I'm sure a large investor could pay a manager to track an index as well (or buy every stock in an index), but I agree it's not perfect - most of what we know about indexing is only a generation and a half old.
All internal data is rounded off to 4 decimal places. (If you can't match a calculation exactly, that's the most likely culprit).
The results are approximate anyway so this isn't a huge limitation. Still, please keep it in mind while citing and using the calculator.
I'm available for hire if you need something custom, with this data or most any other data I have access to. The tool is in a state which makes me happy. Feel free to leave suggestions, but this is close to the final number of features that will ever be in this calculator. To project into the future, try the investment calculator instead.
Here's some other work I've done... maybe I've already created what you need?
Yes, absolutely... and please bring it up immediately so I can fix the tool!
However, don't try to sneak in an enhancement request: the answer is 'no' (or 'hire me', haha).
Consider it a reverse birthday gift - the site turned 6 years old, so you got a gift!
Also, I wanted to run a lot of these scenarios myself, and you've already seen the beginnings of this calculator take shape in an article or two. Why not?
The code probably took 10 or 15 hours (I don't have an exact number - it's about 1300 lines of code all in). All the miscellaneous stuff like writing this article and finding source data and defaults probably added another 5-8.
With that in mind, please share this piece with all of your friends!
Pure JavaScript. I used some new HTML features too for the csv export, and I use Google's library for the chart.
I started it on a 2012 Macbook Pro 15", and I'm finishing up with a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro 15" Retina.
So, we've addressed many of the limitations in the S&P 500 reinvestment calculator with this post. Now you can run wild with all of your backtesting questions on the S&P 500.
I hope that this covers everything you wanted with the original tool, and additionally silences the few rumblings I still see about passive investing. Now you can run the scenario you'd like here for periodic vs. lump sum investing and see a reasonably accurate backtest.
The CSV file export is another key feature. By exporting the data monthly, you can import it into your spreadsheet program and run even more complex scenarios.
Also, as we showed in the original calculator, dividends matter. Over longer scenarios, you'll note that the dividends paid start to dominate the initial investment. If you ever see an article posted which ignores the effects of dividends or only quotes price returns on an index, please send the author this way!
On this page is a Dow Jones return calculator. It allows you to estimate the return contribution of dividends reinvested in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and you can choose to adjust for inflation.
For last year, see the 2025 Dow Jones Industrial Average return. Next, try our individual stock Graham Number calculator or our individual stock dividend reinvestment calculator. If you want to look at DJIA returns over aggregated periods, this calculator will do the work.
As we discussed in our dividends reinvested calculator on the S&P 500, a common problem with investment news is the inability of financial journalists to produce fair comparisons for investor returns. Articles often quote returns using only price returns, completely ignoring the very large effect of reinvested dividends on the returns for an average investor.
Not here, though! Here's the key to this calculator:
Pick any start and end month and the calculator updates as you change it. Click Show Chart to graph the growth of $10,000: the orange line reinvests dividends, the gray line is price only, so the gap between them is the dividend contribution piling up. Tick Log scale for a logarithmic vertical axis, which keeps long, multi-decade windows readable.
Here's how the tool works:
As a disclaimer, this information is for research and educational purposes only. Estimates are derived from multiple sources (listed below) and compiled into the data used in the calculator. We make no guarantees to its accuracy, and you should verify any results with other sources. All numbers are approximations of actual investor performance had the investor reinvested dividends monthly.
Also importantly: we are completely ignoring the drag of fees, taxes, timing, slippage, and the hundreds of other small effects on actual investor performance. None of the data in our calculator matches any exact dividend payout dates nor index closing prices on any individual date.
If you want actual Dow Jones Industrial Average data for other purposes, visit McGraw Hill Financial's S&P Dow Jones Indices, the owner of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the 30 companies themselves are selected by editors of the Wall Street Journal). Nothing on this page should be construed as investment advice - we're not financial advisors, so please talk over any financial decisions with a qualified advisor.
Before you complain about these limitations, remember Carveth Read's advice (often mis-attributed to John Maynard Keynes): "It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong.". For educational purposes, we're happy with how this Dow Jones return calculator turned out.
We built this Dow Jones return calculator for educational purposes since it reinforces a powerful point – dividends really do make a huge difference to investor returns! Say we go back and invest $1 in the Dow's very first month – May 1896 – and run the numbers through May 2026:
So, yes, journalists and others should stop assuming that investors are just throwing their dividend checks in the fireplace. It makes a difference.
For individual investors, also try the ETF return calculator. It automatically does dividend reinvestment.
You've probably already seen other financial websites reporting the correct-yet-incomplete number of 13.85% for the 2014 NASDAQ return. You come to Don't Quit Your Day Job... for the real number, though, of course - which we are happy to report that, dividends reinvested, the NASDAQ returned 15.18% to investors in 2014.
2014 NASDAQ Return: Total vs Index, From Google Finance
| 01/01/2014 Open | 12/31/2014 Close | Annual Return | |
| Nasdaq Total Return | 4563.58 | 5256.55 | 15.18% |
| Nasdaq Index | 4160.03 | 4736.05 | 13.85% |
Even though the NASDAQ, composed as it still is mainly of technology firms, is typically dividend-stingy... dividend reinvestment still contributes a fair amount to the investor's bottom line (see our individual stock reinvestment calculator here). Even then, this isn't the exact return of an investor - allow some variance for fees, tax implications, and purchase timings (this is a theoretical maximum). Regardless, it's the proper number to use when comparing returns to other indices, especially something like the Dow Jones Industrial Average... which is composed of mature companies paying higher dividends.
NASDAQ returns in other years:
You're convinced anyway that this is the right way to do it - so answer us this:
How will the NASDAQ perform in 2015?
Unlike typical financial sites which have already reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average returned a 'meh' 7.55% from the open on January 1st until the close on the 31st of December, we here at Don't Quit Your Day Job recognize that real investors don't burn their dividend checks when they receive them. With reinvested dividends, the 2014 Dow Jones Industrial Average Return was an even more solid 10.02%.
We also have a Dow Jones Industrial Average Reinvestment calculator which has a monthly resolution.
2014 Dow Jones Industrial Average Return: Index vs. reinvested dividends
| 01/01/2014 Open | 12/31/2014 Close | Annual Return | |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average Total Return | 32404.04 | 35650.39 | 10.02% |
| Dow Jones Industrial Index | 16572.17 | 17823.07 | 7.55% |
This is - of course - the correct way to calculate the return a typical investor will have realized. Those investors, of course, can't invest directly in the index though - allow some variance for fees, tax implications, and purchase timings (this is a theoretical maximum). For whatever reason, financial media will report index returns straight up - as if an index like the Dow Jones, with massive industrial bell-weathers and high dividend payments... should or would match the price return of something like a dividend-stingy NASDAQ.
Well, you know better, and we're glad to do the math for you. Also, see our individual stock reinvestment calculator on the site.
See DJIA returns in other years:
Now, tell us the future - how will the Dow Jones Industrial Average perform in 2015?
We include dividend reinvestment in our calculations
Although most financial media sources will list 11.74% as the S&P 500 index's return in 2014, an investor reinvesting dividends in the S&P 500 would have theoretically done even better: 14.04%.
Subtract from that (of course) applicable taxes, fees, slippage/timing concerns - but... needless to say, buying, holding, and reinvesting was a very lucrative strategy this year.
After the large 32.39% dividend reinvested return in 2013, a further 14.04% is more than most could have asked for on such a widely invested index - happy new year for that! Compound that with 2012's 16.00% dividend reinvested return and you're looking at a huge 74.60% reinvestment return just from sitting on your hands and reinvesting your funds - a hefty geometric average of 20.46% a year!
2014 S&P 500 Return: Total vs. Index
| 01/01/2014 Open | 12/31/2014 Close | Annual Return | |
| S&P 500 Total Return | 3305.28 | 3769.44 | 14.04% |
| S&P 500 Index | 1842.61 | 2058.9 | 11.74% |
We, of course, have a few calculators which can help you determine the real returns of theoretical holdings - our S&P 500 Total Return Calculator works on a monthly basis, while our retrospective calculator allows you to compare all rolling S&P 500 reinvested returns. We also have a calculator for individual stock reinvestment calculations.
The retrospective calculator ranks the last three years very highly - (Top) 38.12%, 12.00%, 41.96% of years, respectively - all in the top half (and more than half of rolling years are positive returns). Add to that all of the other gains since March of 2009... well, now that' a bull market!
Will we maintain this momentum? Well, no one can say for certain - but since this is the internet, feel free to leave your no-cost-to-you predictions in the comments!
See other annual S&P 500 Returns:
Questions for thought:
On this page is a Wilshire 5000 Return calculator. It gives the dividend reinvested return of the Wilshire between any two dates since December 1970. It can also adjust returns for daily inflation. It uses data from Wilshire Associates, collated by the St. Louis Fed here and here.
Note: some dates 'snap' to closest data; for some of the history of the Wilshire 5000, only monthly levels were given. Check the dates after you've run the calculation.
We produced this calculator because we're bothered by the math used to computer returns in a lot of posts. For whatever reason, most returns ignore dividends.
A long term investor would have to consciously spend or withdraw dividend money to avoid reinvesting it in a security. Any fair comparison would attempt to factor dividends into security returns.
Wilshire also produces a trailing return calculator which you can find here.
The Wilshire 5000 is an index produced by Wilshire Associates which better measures the total United States stock market than other indexes. As we went to press, the Wilshire 5000 contained around 3,700 market-weighted components, covering most of the publicly traded stocks in the United States.
This data is from Wilshire Associates, and our calculator downloads new data every night at midnight Eastern Time, ensuring that you'll always have data up until 'yesterday', in most cases. Both index levels are collated at the St. Louis Fed:
Daily inflation numbers we calculate ourselves from monthly levels. See our methodology on this page.
With both data points scaled to zero for December of 1970 (where the data begins), you can see the return that would have been ignored had we thrown out the dividends:
On the last day of observation (Dec 31, 1970 - Dec 28, 2013 if you want to try it), you'd be looking at 7917.0 vs. 2311.2. Dividends matter.
Also, try our ETF return calculator. Since ETFs are actually invest-able, you'd see the performance of a real investor with dividends reinvested.
32.39% was the 2013 S&P 500 Return, not the 29.60% you'll see quoted on tons of other sites.
We told you last year, but we'll obnoxiously repeat the lesson once again: dividends matter. While every other web site on the internet gives you the price returns of the S&P 500, we do the extra step and tell you both types of returns: price returns and dividend reinvestment returns.
2013 S&P 500 Return: Reinvested Dividends vs. Price
Dividend reinvested returns in green, index returns in orange.
We've heard plenty of arguments to the contrary, but they all fail for the same general reason: it makes no sense to consider index returns without doing something with the dividends. Yes, SPXT isn't a perfect comparison (it ignores taxes and trading fees to list two issues), but it's vastly superior to ignoring dividends altogether.
So, once again, when you look at the S&P 500, please use the S&P 500 Total Return Index, graciously provided by S&P to fix this commonly made error. For longer time frames, Don't Quit Your Day Job has a S&P 500 Reinvestment Calculator which uses Robert Shiller's data back to 1871 (and, hilariously enough, covers times when the S&P "500" wasn't 500).
| 1/2/2013 Open | 12/31/2013 Close | Annual Return | |
| S&P 500 Total Return | 2504.45 | 3315.59 | 32.39% |
| S&P 500 Price Return | 1426.19 | 1848.36 | 29.60% |
Other years:
2012 S&P 500 Return: Price vs. Reinvested Dividends
| Jan 3 Open | Dec 31 Close | Return | |
| S&P TR | 2158.93 | 2504.44 | 16.00% |
| S&P 500 | 1258.86 | 1426.19 | 13.29% |
Below is a S&P 500 return calculator with dividend reinvestment. It also has inflation data integrated, so it can estimate total investment returns before taxes. It shows the price return of the index along with the estimated effect of reinvested dividends.
For last year, see the 2025 S&P 500 return. Also see the 2024 S&P 500 return.
Pick a starting and ending month and the calculator updates in real time. Here's what it shows:
Click Show Chart to graph the growth of $10,000: the blue line reinvests dividends, the gray line is price only, so the gap between them is the dividend contribution piling up. Tick Log scale for a logarithmic vertical axis, which helps keep long, multi-decade windows readable.
Professor Shiller lists his methodology on his site - all values internal to this tool use the values he provided (outside of the most recent month).
The month's 'Price' isn't the price on a particular day, but an average of closing prices. It answers "what did the average investor who invested randomly during the beginning month and sold randomly during the ending month do?".
Let me say that again in a different way: other than the most recent month, which is tied to one closing price, the month DOES NOT correspond to an individual day. It's a guess at an average investor's price basis (or sale price) if they bought (or sold) "at some point" in the month.
Also, important (since it comes up often in the comments): because it isn't an individual date, that means when you're trying to compute yearly returns, you need to be careful to pick twelve months - so, if you were interested in the annual return of 2013, you would pick Jan-2013 to Jan-2014 or Dec-2012 or Dec-2013 to get roughly 12 months.
If you want exact dates, try our mutual fund return calculator or ETF return calculator.
To calculate the 'dividend reinvested' price index:
This will, of course, not match the results of an individual investor. It's extremely complicated to go back and calculate exact S&P 500 payout dates for each fund in each brokerage for one specific investor, and figure out what the index was trading at on that date.
We also present this data from the perspective of average return over various time periods.