between percent earned on capital gains and dividends was much closer than it has been since the 1980s. In

the 1980s and 1990s, capital gains were far higher than dividends. In the 2000s, dividends remained low and,

while stock prices fluctuated, they ended the decade roughly where they had started. In the 2010s, dividends

remained low and stock prices increased, and this continued at the beginning of the 2020s.
420 17 • Financial Markets

Period

Total Annual Return Capital Gains Dividends

1950–1959 19.25%

13.58%

4.99%

1960–1969 7.78%

4.39%

3.25%

1970–1979 5.88%

1.60%

4.20%

1980–1989 17.55%

12.59%

4.40%

1990–1999 18.21%

15.31%

2.51%

2000–2009 −1.00%

−2.70%

1.70%

2010–2019 12.65%

10.35%

2.30%

2020

2021

18.40%

28.71%

16.26%

2.14%

26.89%

1.82%

TABLE 17.2 Annual Returns on S&P 500 Stocks, 1950–2021

The overall pattern is that stocks as a group have provided a high rate of return over extended periods of time,
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