Stock market's 'Lost Decade' wasn't a loss for these stocks
— -- Q: I keep hearing about the "lost decade" for stocks as performance has been below average the past 10 years. Were there any stocks that did well the past decade?
A: The "lost decade" for stocks perplexes academics and befuddles investors.
Despite its long-term history of average annual return of about 10%, the stock market sorely disappointed investors the past 10 years. The ten years ended June 30, 2008, stocks returned just 3.5% a year on average.
Not only was that low by historical standards, it also lagged the performance of bonds, which returned 5.68%. If you're interested learning more about the lost decade, Vanguard has an article about it in this newsletter.
But just as with many statistics based on averages, there's a bit of distortion when talking about the lost decade, as you point out. While stocks as a group lagged their norms the past 10 years, some stocks did just fine, or very well.
In the chart at left are the 10 best-performing stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 between June 30, 1999 and June 30, 2009:
Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns. Follow Matt on Twitter at: twitter.com/mattkrantz
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