Today’s chart from JP Morgan Asset Management’s Guide to the Markets quarterly presentation shows the cumulative returns based on 1, 5, 10, and 20 years for all stocks (in green), all bonds (in blue), and a 50/50 mix (in grey) since 1950.
Essentially, the longer you hold your investments, the higher probability you have of positive returns. In fact, there was never a period over 20 years that any of the options lost money.
The chart also shows the average annual total return for stocks was an impressive 11.5% during last 20 years. It will be interesting to see how the next 20 years look.