On this page is a Stocks vs Bonds Historical Returns Calculator. It puts the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ Composite, the 10-year US Treasury, short-term cash (3-month T-bill), and a classic 60/40 portfolio on the same chart, so you can see how each one performed over history.

The Stocks vs Bonds Historical Returns Calculator

Using the calculator

The default view grows $10,000 in each asset from 1972, where the NASDAQ data starts. Everything recomputes in real time as you change a setting.

In Calculation Options:

• Asset toggles – click any asset to show or hide it, including the 60/40 (composed of 60% S&P 500, 40% 10-year Treasury, rebalanced monthly) option which is off by default. Drop NASDAQ and the start year reaches back to 1897 (Dow) or 1872 (S&P 500 and 10-year Treasury); drop the equities and Cash and Treasury go back to 1858.
• Reinvest Dividends – on by default. Off switches the equity indices to price-only (although the bond series are total-return by construction, so they don't change).
• Adjust for Inflation – restates every series in CPI-adjusted terms.
• Start year – any year from the selected set's earliest shared year forward.

Three views are toggleable across the top:

• Growth of $10K – each asset's running balance from the start year, with a brush below the chart for date-range zoom and a log-scale toggle. Underneath is a Performance & risk table: end value, CAGR, standard deviation, Sharpe, Sortino, maximum drawdown, best and worst calendar year, and correlation to the S&P 500.
• Rolling Returns – the rolling annualized total return for each asset over a holding period you pick (1, 3, 5, 10, 20, or 30 years), overlaid so you can see how the ranking shifts by era.
• Win-rate Heatmap – for each start year and holding period, the cell is colored by the asset that 'won' that window. Cells gray out when the period runs past today.

Methodology and sources

Each asset starts from a monthly-average price (or yield) series, then is mapped to total-return level the way an investor would experience it. The five series:

• S&P 500 back to January 1871, from Robert Shiller's compiled dataset. See the S&P 500 Return Calculator for my construction.
• Dow Jones Industrial Average back to May 1896, blended from FRED DJIA and DQYDJ's historical reconstruction. See the Dow Jones Return Calculator.
• NASDAQ Composite back to February 1971, prices from FRED NASDAQCOM; recent dividends estimated from the spread between the price and total-return NASDAQ indices. See the NASDAQ Return Calculator for the full derivations and estimates.
• 10-Year US Treasury back to January 1871, on the long-history 10-year yield series from Shiller's dataset. Each month the model holds a freshly-issued par bond at the prevailing yield, ages it a month, and reprices it at the new yield with full present-value bond math. It uses the constant-maturity engine behind our Treasury Return Calculator.
• Cash (3-Month T-Bill) back to January 1858, as a blended series. The modern era uses FRED TB3MS (3-month T-bill, secondary market). 1920–1934 uses the NBER short-term US securities series (M1329AUSM193NNBR) with a +22.046 bps adjustment; pre-1920 uses NYC commercial paper rates (M13002US35620M156NNBR) with a −62.267 bps adjustment to a T-bill-equivalent. These adjustments are explained in our 2018 long-run yield curve inversions post. Cash compounds monthly at the prevailing short rate, and also serves as the risk-free rate in the Sharpe and Sortino calculations.
• CPI for the real adjustment comes from Shiller's dataset, scaled to the most recent month, with infill from FRED.

What the Performance & risk columns mean

• End value – what a $10,000 investment grew to by the end of the window.
• CAGR – compound annual growth rate, the annualized rate that turns the start value into the end value.
• Standard deviation – annualized volatility of the monthly returns; a higher number is a rougher ride.
• Sharpe – return per unit of total risk: the annualized return above the risk-free rate (our Cash series/3-Month T-Bill proxy) divided by standard deviation. Higher is better.
• Sortino – like Sharpe, but it penalizes only downside volatility, so it rewards assets whose swings are mostly to the upside.
• Max DD – maximum drawdown, the worst peak-to-trough decline over the window, measured on the monthly path.
• Best / worst yr – the best and worst single calendar-year return (December over December) in the window.
• Corr S&P – correlation to the S&P 500: how closely an asset's monthly moves track it, from +1 (lockstep) through 0 (no relationship) to −1 (opposite)

Related calculators

On this page is a NASDAQ Annual Return Rankings tool. It shows every calendar year return¹ the NASDAQ Composite has posted since 1972, ranked from best to worst, with toggles for dividend reinvestment and inflation adjustment.

¹ - See methodology for how these annual returns work.

The NASDAQ Annual Return Rankings Calculator

Using the NASDAQ Annual Return Rankings Calculator

The default view shows nominal total returns (dividends reinvested). Everything responds in real time as you toggle settings.

• Reinvest Dividends – default on. Switch off for price-only annual returns.
• Adjust for Inflation – flips every annual return into real (CPI-adjusted) terms.
• Highlights cards – eight stats spanning the full NASDAQ history: best and worst calendar year on record, mean and median annual return, win rate (defined as the share of years that finished positive), longest positive and negative streaks, and the most recent year's return.
• Chart and table – the bar chart greens positive years and reds negative ones; the brush chart below lets you zoom to any date range. The table beneath sorts on any column header you choose.

Historical NASDAQ annual returns table

Below is the static reference table of every NASDAQ calendar-year return on record, going back to 1972. Both price return and total return (dividends reinvested) versions are shown.

The 1999 tech-bubble anomaly...

Across 54 years of NASDAQ annual data, roughly 76% of calendar years finish positive on a total-return basis – the highest hit rate of the three major US indices in this comparison.

The single best year on record is 1999 at +81% total return – the climactic year of the infamous 1995–1999 dot-com run-up. Unlike the S&P 500's or Dow Jones's best-year-ever, the NASDAQ's didn't come as a snapback out of a bear; it came as the peak before the fall. The three years that followed – 2000 (−29%), 2001 (−25%), 2002 (−29%) – are the only three-year-in-a-row negative TR streak in the dataset.

The down years cluster otherwise too. 1973–1974 was a back-to-back (−31%, −33%). 2008 stood alone at −42% (the single worst year on record). 2022 stood alone at −29%. The NASDAQ has no four-year-in-a-row negative TR streak – though the dataset starts in 1971, so it doesn't reach back to the Great Depression.

The longest positive TR streak is nine years – 1975 through 1983, the long climb out of the 1973–74 bear. Snapback pairs are tight after the worst single years: 1974 (−33%) was followed by 1975 (+33%); 2008 (−42%) by 2009 (+47%); 2022 (−29%) by 2023 (+37%).

Methodology and sources

NASDAQ Composite daily prices come from the Federal Reserve's NASDAQCOM series on FRED, with each monthly value being the average of that month's daily closes. For dividend back-out detail and additional construction notes, see DQYDJ's NASDAQ Return Calculator.

Heads up on methodology vs. what you see in news headlines: the NASDAQ's calendar-year return as quoted in the financial press is typically the December 31 close over the prior December 31 close (or January 2 open) +/- a few days for market closes. The numbers here use the December monthly-average instead.

Most years the two agree within fractions of a percentage point; volatile ones (1999, 2000, 2008, 2020, 2022) can diverge by 1–3 points. For headline-style annual numbers, see our year-specific NASDAQ return posts.

• Annual price return for year Y: (December Y monthly-average price) ÷ (December Y−1 monthly-average price) − 1.
• Total return reinvests each month's per-share dividend into more index shares at that month's price, then takes the Dec-over-Dec ratio of shares × price.
• Real (inflation-adjusted) returns divide by the CPI ratio between the two Decembers.

Related calculators

On this page is a NASDAQ Drawdown History Calculator. It tracks every peak-to-trough decline the NASDAQ Composite has been through since February 1971, how deep each one went, and how long it took to reclaim the prior high.

The NASDAQ Drawdown History Calculator

Using the NASDAQ Drawdown Calculator

The default view shows total-return drawdowns (dividends reinvested or nominal). Everything responds in real time as you toggle settings.

• Reinvest Dividends – on by default. Switch off to instead see price-only drawdowns – the version most financial-press crash retrospectives quote.
• Adjust for Inflation – flips the calculation into real (CPI-adjusted) terms.
• Underwater chart – zero at every new all-time high, negative everywhere else. The brush at the bottom defaults to the last 30 years; drag it back to 1971 (the start of the dataset) or in on a single episode.
• Highlights cards – eight summary stats covering both today and the full history: today's drawdown depth and time underwater, the deepest ever and its date, the longest decline period, the longest recovery, the longest total time below the prior peak, the count of bear markets (≥20%), the count of corrections (10–20%), and the most recent 10%+ drawdown.

Top 10 worst NASDAQ drawdowns

Below is the static reference table of the ten worst NASDAQ drawdowns on record – total-return based, peak month through trough month through new-high recovery month. Click to expand the chart.

The fourteen-year recovery...

The defining episode in the NASDAQ's drawdown history is the dot-com bust. It's the deepest, longest to bottom, and (by a wide margin) the longest stretch underwater.

• 2000–2014 (Dot-com bust) – peak March 2000, trough October 2002, total-return new high not reached until June 2014. A 74% total-return drawdown, 31 months from peak to trough, then nearly 12 years to climb back. On a price-only basis the recovery took until February 2015 – nearly fifteen years from the prior peak. By a wide margin the longest underwater stretch in any major US index post-Great-Depression. The 2007–2009 financial crisis happened entirely inside this drawdown: the NASDAQ on a total return basis had partially recovered from the 2002 trough by October 2007, then fell another 48% to its March 2009 local low, then resumed grinding back to the 2014 new high.
• 1973–1978 (Stagflation bear) – a 55% total-return drawdown from January 1973 to September 1974, with recovery to a new TR high in May 1978. Notably deeper than the same episode on the S&P 500 (~39%) and the Dow (~37%).
• 2021–2024 (Tech selloff) – peak November 2021, trough October 2022, recovery to a new TR high in February 2024. A 31% total-return drawdown.
• Other ≥20% bear markets in the dataset – 1981–82, 1983–85, 1987 (Black Monday), 1989–90. Seven ≥20% TR bear markets in 55 years.

Methodology and sources

NASDAQ Composite daily prices come from the Federal Reserve's NASDAQCOM series on FRED, with each monthly value being the average of that month's daily closes. For the dividend back-out detail and additional construction notes, see DQYDJ's NASDAQ Return Calculator.

What is a drawdown?

A drawdown is the distance between an index's current level and the highest level it has ever printed. At a new all-time high, the drawdown is zero. Anywhere below that, it's negative – the percentage gap from the prior peak.

Formally, for any month t:

\text{drawdown}_t = \frac{V_t - \max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}{\max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}

Output sits between 0 (at a fresh high) and −1 (a 100% loss).

A quick note on monthly averaging: it captures slow 'grinders' like the dot-com bust faithfully – the NASDAQ's 31-month slide from 2000 to 2002 was a textbook monthly-average decline. However, it smooths out fast shocks like 1987's Black Monday or the COVID fall in March 2020, both of which were sharper on a daily-close chart than this tool can show.

Related calculators

On this page is a Dow Jones Annual Return Rankings tool. It shows calendar year returns¹ back to 1897, ranked from best to worst, with toggles for dividend reinvestment and inflation adjustment.

¹ - See methodology for how annual returns work.

The Dow Jones Annual Return Rankings Calculator

Using the Dow Jones Annual Return Rankings Calculator

The default view shows nominal total returns (dividends reinvested). Everything updates in real time as you toggle a setting.

• Reinvest Dividends – default is on. Off gives you price-only annual returns.
• Adjust for Inflation – switches to real (CPI-adjusted) annual returns.
• Highlights cards – eight summary stats covering the full Dow history: best and worst calendar year on record, the average and median return, the win rate (share of years that finished positive), the longest winning and losing streaks, and the most recent year.
• Chart and table – bar chart with green bars for positive years and red for negative, plus a brush below for zooming. The table beneath sorts on any column.

Historical Dow Jones annual returns table

Below is the static reference table of every Dow Jones calendar-year return on record, going back to 1897. Both price return and total return (dividends reinvested) versions are shown. Click to expand.

The 1915 anomaly...

Across 129 years of Dow annual data, roughly 74% of calendar years finish positive on a total-return basis.

The single best year on record is the outlier: 1915 at +87% total return. The Dow had spent the previous two years in the only pre-WWI back-to-back bear (1913 −5%, 1914 −25%, mostly the European war scare and the four-and-a-half-month NYSE shutdown that ran from July 31 to December 12, 1914). When the exchange reopened, US industrial stocks turned out to be on the right side of an unprecedented munitions and capital-goods boom. The Dow's industrial concentration was in exactly the right place. No other calendar year in the dataset comes close.

The down years cluster. 1929–1932 (Great Depression) is the only four-year-in-a-row negative total return streak. 1937 stands alone. 1973–1974 was a back-to-back. 2000–2002 was a three-peat. 2008 was alone at −34%. The longest positive streak is 10 years: 1947 through 1956.

And the worst and best years cluster tightly. The single worst calendar year, 1931 (−49%), is just two years before 1933 (+75%). 1907 (−34%) was followed immediately by 1908 (+55%). 1914 (−25%) by the 1915 +87% snapback above. 1937 (−26%) by 1938 (+24%). 1974 (−24%) by 1975 (+48%). 2008 (−34%) by 2009 (+25%).

Methodology and sources

Recent Dow Jones Industrial Average daily prices come from the Federal Reserve's DJIA series on FRED, with each monthly value being the average of that month's daily closes. Per-share monthly dividends are derived from the gap between the Dow price index and the S&P DJI total-return DJIA index, allocated across the months of each quarter. For detail on how the historical Dow level and dividend series are populated and estimated back to 1896, see DQYDJ's Dow Jones Return Calculator.

Why these numbers may differ from what you've seen elsewhere: the financial press and index publishers usually quote annual returns as the Jan 2 open to the Dec 31 close (or thereabouts, depending on market days). This tool's annual return uses the December monthly-average price over the prior December monthly-average – the same convention used in long-horizon academic datasets.

Calm years agree within fractions of a percent; volatile ones (2008, 2020, 2022 are recent examples) can differ by a couple of percentage points. For the press-style numbers, see our year-specific Dow Jones return posts.

• Annual price return for year Y = (December Y monthly-average price) ÷ (December Y−1 monthly-average price) − 1.
• Total return reinvests each month's dividend into more index shares at that month's price (the shares-purchased method), then takes the Dec-over-Dec ratio of shares × price.
• Real (inflation-adjusted) returns divide by the CPI ratio between the two December months.

Related calculators

On this page is a Dow Jones Drawdown History Calculator. It shows how far the Dow has fallen from its prior peak, how long each decline took, how long the recovery took, and how any current drawdown stacks up against Dow history back to 1896.

The Dow Jones Drawdown History Calculator

Using the Dow Jones Drawdown Calculator

The default view shows total-return drawdowns (dividends reinvested, nominal). Everything updates in real time as you toggle a setting.

• Reinvest Dividends – default is on. Off gives you the price-only view that matches other published lists.
• Adjust for Inflation – switches the drawdown calculation into real (CPI-adjusted) terms.
• Underwater chart – sits at zero whenever the Dow is at a new high, and runs negative the rest of the time. The brush at the bottom defaults to the last 30 years; drag it back to 1896 or in on a particular crisis.
• Highlights cards – eight summary stats covering current and historical drawdowns: today's depth, the deepest ever, the longest decline (peak to trough), the longest recovery, the longest total time underwater, the count of bear markets (≥20%), the count of corrections (10–20%), and the most recent 10%+ drawdown.

Top 10 worst Dow Jones drawdowns

Below is the static reference table of the ten worst Dow drawdowns on record – total-return based, peak month through trough month through new-high recovery month. Click to expand.

Famous Dow Jones drawdowns in context

• 1929–1932 (Great Depression) – the deepest drawdown in the dataset (by a wide margin). Even with dividends reinvested, the Dow fell about 85% from September 1929 to July 1932. Recovery to a new total-return high didn't happen until September 1945 – 16 years underwater. On a price-only basis (no dividend reinvestment), the recovery took until November 1954.
• 1973–1974 (Stagflation bear) – ~37% total-return drawdown from January 1973 to December 1974. Recovery to a new TR high came in January 1976 – a fast bounce on the TR side, helped by the era's high dividend yields. In real terms (toggle Adjust for Inflation), it was much worse: inflation was eating returns even as the nominal index recovered.
• 2000–2003 (Dot-com bust) – the Dow's dot-com drawdown was much shallower than the broader market's. Peak January 2000, trough February 2003, about a 26% total-return drawdown – versus the S&P 500's ~42% and the NASDAQ Composite's much deeper hit. The Dow was less tech-heavy at the turn of the century, and it shows.
• 2007–2009 (Global Financial Crisis) – peak October 2007, trough March 2009, recovery to a new TR high in May 2011. About a 46% total-return drawdown, the second-deepest in the dataset after the Great Depression.
• 1987 Black Monday – the daily-close drawdown that October – famously ~-22% in a single session. The monthly-average data this tool uses smooths over that single day, so the episode shows up as a ~27% drawdown over four months rather than the headline one-day move.
• COVID 2020 – similar story: the daily-close peak-to-trough was about −37%, but peak (Feb), trough (Mar), and new high (Nov) all happened within nine months. This monthly-average methodology doesn't catch the depth – but it happened, so I'll flag it here.

Methodology and sources

Daily Dow Jones Industrial Average prices come from the Federal Reserve's DJIA series on FRED, with each monthly value being the average of that month's daily closes. Per-share monthly dividends are derived from the gap between the Dow price index and the S&P DJI total-return DJIA index, allocated across the months of each quarter.

For detail on how the underlying historical Dow level and dividend series are populated and estimated back to 1896, see DQYDJ's Dow Jones Return Calculator.

What is a drawdown?

A drawdown is the running gap between an investment's current value and its highest value to date. Whenever the index hits a new all-time high, the drawdown is zero. Whenever it's sitting below the prior peak, the drawdown is negative – the percentage distance from that peak.

For any month t:

\text{drawdown}_t = \frac{V_t - \max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}{\max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}

That always produces a number between 0 (at a new high) and −1 (a 100% loss).

A reminder on the methodology: short, fast crashes – the one-day Black Monday move in 1987, or the COVID waterfall in March 2020 – get smoothed away by monthly averaging, and look milder in this tool than they did on a daily-close chart.

Related calculators

On this page is an S&P 500 Annual Return Rankings tool. It shows calendar year returns¹ back to 1872, ranked from best to worst, with toggles for dividend reinvestment and inflation adjustment.

¹ - See methodology for how annual returns work.

The S&P 500 Annual Return Rankings Calculator

Using the S&P 500 Annual Return Rankings Calculator

The default view shows nominal total returns (dividends reinvested). Everything updates in real time as you toggle a setting.

• Reinvest Dividends – on by default. Toggle off for price-only annual returns.
• Adjust for Inflation – when on, every annual return is restated in real (CPI-adjusted) terms.
• Highlights cards – eight headline stats: best year and worst year on record, average and median annual return, win rate (% of years with positive returns), longest positive streak, longest negative streak, and the most recent year.
• Chart and table – the bar chart colors positive years green and negative years red; you can drag the brush at the bottom to zoom into any window. The table beneath is sortable by year or by any return column.

Historical S&P 500 annual returns table

Below is the static reference table of every S&P 500 calendar-year return on record, going back to 1872. Both price return and total return (dividends reinvested) versions are shown. Click to expand.

Three out of four...

Across 154 years of S&P 500 annual data, roughly 73% of calendar years finish positive on a total-return basis.

The down years tended to cluster. 1929–1932 (Great Depression) is the only four-year-in-a-row negative TR streak on record. 1937 stands alone. 1973–1974 was a back-to-back. 2000–2002 was a three-peat. 2008 was alone at −39%. The longest positive streak is 10 years – 1947 through 1956.

The worst and best years also cluster tightly. The single worst calendar year, 1931 (−42%), is just two years before the single best, 1933 (+54%). 1937 (−32%) was followed by 1938 (+22%). 1974 (−26%) by 1975 (+38%). 2008 (−39%) by 2009 (+30%).

Methodology and sources

S&P 500 monthly prices, dividends, and CPI come from Robert Shiller's compiled dataset, which extends back to 1871 by splicing the modern S&P 500 onto its pre-1957 predecessor indexes. Each monthly price is the average of that month's daily closes. For the underlying construction detail, see DQYDJ's S&P 500 Return Calculator.

A note on which "annual return" you're looking at: the returns here are December monthly-average over December monthly-average – the standard Shiller-style convention. They will differ slightly from the Jan-open-to-Dec-close numbers most publishers quote, especially in volatile years where the Dec average isn't close to the the Dec-31 close (or the equivalent last trading day of the year). For year-specific closer-to-publisher-style numbers, see our year-specific S&P 500 return posts.

• Annual price return for year Y = (December Y monthly-average price) ÷ (December Y−1 monthly-average price) − 1.
• Total return reinvests each month's dividend into more index shares at that month's price (the shares-purchased method), then takes the Dec-over-Dec ratio of shares × price.
• Real (inflation-adjusted) returns divide by the CPI ratio between the two December months.

Related calculators

On this page is an S&P 500 Drawdown History Calculator. It shows how far the S&P 500 has fallen from its prior peak, how long each decline took, how long the recovery took, and how any current drawdown stacks up against history back to 1871.

The S&P 500 Drawdown History Calculator

Using the S&P 500 Drawdown Calculator

The default view shows total-return drawdowns (dividends reinvested, nominal). Everything updates in real time as you toggle a setting.

• Reinvest Dividends – on by default. Toggle off for the price-only drawdowns that closely match most published "biggest crashes ever" lists. But note, dividends meaningfully cushion drawdown depth and shorten time-to-new-high, so the price-only and total-return numbers can differ by a lot for the long episodes.
• Adjust for Inflation – when on, drawdowns are computed in real (CPI-adjusted) terms.
• Underwater chart – always zero or negative. It shows how far the index sits below its prior all-time high at every month. New highs reset the line to zero; bear markets pull it deep. The brush chart at the bottom defaults to the last 30 years; drag the handles to zoom out to 1871 or zoom in on a single crisis.
• Highlights cards – eight headline stats: current drawdown depth and months underwater, deepest drawdown ever (and when), longest decline (peak → trough), longest recovery (trough → new high), longest total underwater stretch, bear-market count (≥20% drawdown), correction count (10–20% drawdowns), and the most recent 10%-plus drawdown.

Top 10 worst S&P 500 drawdowns

Below is the static reference table of the ten worst S&P 500 drawdowns on record – total-return based, peak month through trough month through new-high recovery month. Click to expand the chart.

Famous S&P 500 drawdowns in context

• 1929–1932 (Great Depression) – the deepest drawdown in the dataset, by a wide margin. Even with dividends reinvested, the S&P 500 fell about 82% from September 1929 to June 1932. Recovery to a new total-return high didn't happen until January 1945 – over 15 years underwater. On a price-only basis (no dividends), the recovery took until September 1954.
• 1973–1974 (Stagflation bear) – ~39% total-return drawdown from January 1973 to December 1974. Recovery to a new TR high came in mid-1976 – a fast bounce, helped by the era's high dividend yields. In real terms (toggle Adjust for Inflation), it was much worse: inflation was eating returns even as the nominal index recovered.
• 2000–2003 (Dot-com bust) – peak August 2000, trough February 2003. About a 42% total-return drawdown, with recovery to a new high in October 2006 – just over six years total underwater.
• 2007–2009 (Global Financial Crisis) – peak October 2007, trough March 2009, recovery to a new TR high in August 2012. A 49% total-return drawdown, the second-deepest on record after the Great Depression.
• COVID 2020 – the daily-close drawdown reached about −34%, but on a monthly-average basis (what this tool uses) the shock barely registers in the top 10. The peak (Feb), trough (Mar), and new high (Aug) all happened within six months – too fast for monthly averages to capture the depth.

Methodology and sources

S&P 500 monthly prices and dividends come from Robert Shiller's compiled dataset, which extends back to 1871 by splicing the modern S&P 500 onto its pre-1957 predecessor indexes. Each monthly price is the average of that month's daily closes. The total-return series is built by reinvesting each month's dividend into more index shares at that month's price (the shares-purchased method). The underwater series at each month is the gap between the current level and the running maximum so far.

For detail on the construction of the underlying series, see DQYDJ's S&P 500 Return Calculator.

What is a drawdown?

A drawdown is how far an investment has fallen from its prior all-time high. At any moment, the drawdown is the percentage gap between the current value and the highest value the investment has ever reached. When the investment makes a new all-time high, the drawdown resets to zero. When the price drops below the prior peak, the drawdown is negative.

Formally, for any month t:

\text{drawdown}_t = \frac{V_t - \max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}{\max(V_0, \ldots, V_t)}

That always produces a number between 0 (at a new high) and −1 (a 100% loss).

One caveat on my data: because we work from monthly-average prices, short sharp drawdowns like COVID 2020 and Black Monday 1987 understate the peak-to-trough depth that a daily-close chart would show – and the panic an investor might have felt in the moment.

Related calculators

In 2025, bitcoin returned -6.33% in US dollar terms based on a buy-and-hold approach of buying the "opening" trade on January 1, 2025, and selling the "closing" trade of December 31, 2025. Those trades were, respectively, $93,425.10 and $87,508.83. That -6.33% return came after a blistering – that's the scientific term! – 120.98% return in 2024 and 155.41% in 2023.

2025 was a volatile year for bitcoin, which fits its historical pattern! On October 6, 2025, bitcoin set a new all-time high with a trade of $126,198.07. On April 7, 2025, it hit a yearly low of $74,436.68.

2025's Bitcoin Return: a Year of Consolidation

Try our bitcoin return calculator to see returns between any two arbitrary dates. You can optionally adjust for inflation, measured by CPI.

We also have other bitcoin tools you might find useful:

• Bitcoin Daily Moving Average (DMA) Calculator
• Bitcoin Drawdown Calculator
• USD to Bitcoin Calculator
• Bitcoin to USD Calculator

Annual Bitcoin returns posts

This isn't the first year we gave you a quick recap on bitcoin price movement. Also, check out:

• 2024 Bitcoin Return
• 2023 Bitcoin Return
• 2022 Bitcoin Return
• 2021 Bitcoin Return
• 2020 Bitcoin Return
• 2019 Bitcoin Return
• 2018 Bitcoin Return

Ethereum returned -10.96% in 2025 in US Dollar terms. That's based on an "opening" trade of $3,332.41 on January 1, 2025, and a "closing" trade of $2,967.04 on December 31, 2025.

Despite the negative annual return, 2025 was pretty eventful for Ethereum. On August 24, 2025, ETH hit a new all-time high of $4,953.73 – finally eclipsing its 2021 peak, though not hitting the long-"promised" $5,000. On April 9, 2025, it touched a yearly low of $1,386.80.

Eth in 2025: disappointingly volatile!

Prices are based on CoinMarketCap data, sourced from Yahoo! Finance. Returns don't include the effects of taxes, transaction or management fees, or other factors.

For further results, try our ethereum return calculator. It will show returns between any two arbitrary dates, and can adjust for inflation.

Other Ethereum tools you might find useful:

• Ethereum Daily Moving Average (DMA) Calculator
• Ethereum Drawdown Calculator
• Ethereum to USD Calculator
• USD to Ethereum Calculator

See other year results

This isn't the first time I recapped Ethereum! Check out the past editions (and see more green):

• 2024 Ethereum Return
• 2023 Ethereum Return
• 2022 Ethereum Return

The Dow Jones Industrial Average returned 12.67% in 2025. Using a better calculation including dividend reinvestment, the Dow Jones returned 14.92%.

2025 Dow Jones Industrial Average return: Steady as she goes

The above calculation is based on a theoretical trade at open on January 2nd, 2025 and a sale at close on December 31, 2025. That is, of course, impossible to time... but I think you get the idea!

If you prefer the December 31, 2024 close price, you can find it in the table, below.

Dow Jones 2025 Index Returns

Dow Jones 2025 Total Return Index Returns

*S&P Dow Jones Indices doesn't report a different price between the 2024 close and 2025 open.

The Dow Jones tends to include mature companies which pay more of their earnings out in dividends. It's an active index, and the index committee constantly swaps out firms. The ~2.3% dividend boost (from 12.67% to 14.92%) reflects the Dow's dividend-heavier composition compared to the tech-heavy NASDAQ.

Investing in the Dow Jones Price-Weighted Stock Index

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is price-weighted. Price-weighted indices take the trading price of the underlying company shares times an "individual stock factor". Most stock indices nowadays are market capitalization weighted, (see the 2025 S&P 500 Return).

Price weighting is not as good as market capitalization weighting. But, it does track large cap companies well if indices are constructed well, with components that represent the broader market.

Source on the 2025 Dow Jones Industrial Average Return Calculations

Dow Jones Indices is owned by S&P Dow Jones Indices. They run both the Dow Jones Total Return and Price Indices.

Historically, here on DQYDJ we have gone pretty far with our content – both in investing, and with some Dow Jones specific posts and tools:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average Dividend Reinvestment Calculator
  Estimate DJIA performance since 1896
• Dow Jones Industrial Average Historical Return Calculator
  Summary statistics on the DJIA

See DJIA returns in other years: