Investors worried about a possible stock-market crash may find the most durable historical evidence in a simple approach: buy and hold a low-cost fund tracking the S&P 500. No crash is confirmed, but high Treasury yields and elevated valuations have raised concerns about possible turbulence.
The S&P 500 and its predecessors have never produced a negative total return over any 20-year holding period, including periods covering the Great Depression, World War II, 1970s stagflation, the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the 2008 financial crisis. That record includes reinvested dividends and reflects the market’s eventual rebounds after major declines.
Dividends have been a significant part of the result. They accounted for roughly 44% of the S&P 500’s total return over the last 30 years.
The historical record does not guarantee that an S&P 500 fund will deliver a positive return over the next 20 years. Investment funds are required to warn that past performance does not necessarily predict future results, and the same caution applies to a buy-and-hold strategy. The approach’s central trade-off is therefore clear: it has survived every prior 20-year period in the record, but investors still face uncertainty over future market performance.