Crews Bank & Trust Blog

Chart of the Day: Better than 50/50, Especially in the Long Run

Today’s Chart of the Day from @morganhousel on Twitter illustrates the odds that you will have a positive return in the stock market based on how long you own stocks. Quite simply, the longer you hold, the better chance you have. There is a lot of randomness day-to-day, with only a 52% chance to have a positive return after one day. By contrast, buy-and-hold investors have historically seen higher returns which have reached an 88% chance when stocks are held for 10 years or an even more impressive 100% chance over 20+ years.