<story><title>U.S. stock market returns – a history from the 1870s to 2022</title><url>https://themeasureofaplan.com/us-stock-market-returns-1870s-to-present/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>Who cares about returns over the next 150 years?  Even half that is excessive.  Someone investing at age 18 might care about the subsequent 50 years.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s going to be a long time before some other country takes over the &amp;quot;reserve currency&amp;#x2F;investment market of last resort&amp;quot; position the US currently has.  No other market is even close to providing the deep liquidity and rule of law the US market has over a wide variety of instruments.&lt;p&gt;Sure, someone will eventually take over that role, but there are no candidates today.  And, to your point: it was clear by the late 19th century that the US dollar would displace Sterling, but it took another half a century for that to happen.  On the scale of current human lifespan, you can assume it won&amp;#x27;t happen at all.</text></item><item><author>danhak</author><text>Of course a country’s stock market will perform well as that country ascends to become the world’s dominant superpower.&lt;p&gt;The question is whether the power and influence of the U.S. will grow similarly over the next 150 years as it has over the last 150.&lt;p&gt;To invest mechanically without thinking about what’s actually happening in the world is cargo cult behavior.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ganonm</author><text>Keep in mind that the present value depends somewhat on the discounted future earnings, which by definition extends to the end of time. That being said, the associated time discounting heavily reduces the impact of earnings envisaged say 100 years from now (a 5% discount rate would mean ~13k USD in 100 years is worth about 100 USD now, and that&amp;#x27;s probably generous given historic market returns).&lt;p&gt;So, the US doing extremely well 100 years from now vs. the US doing very badly 100 years from now could have a non-trivial impact on the perceived value of US assets. I suspect that the large uncertainty about what the world will look like in 100 years means there is just some sort of seldom changing value baked into assets to account for this, but it nonetheless exists, and could change if there was some huge geopolitical shift.&lt;p&gt;And before you mention anyone on earth would be dead in 150 years, yes that&amp;#x27;s true, however you can always sell it to someone later on who &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; be alive in 150 years (or sell it to someone who can later sell it to someone etc. etc.).</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. stock market returns – a history from the 1870s to 2022</title><url>https://themeasureofaplan.com/us-stock-market-returns-1870s-to-present/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>Who cares about returns over the next 150 years?  Even half that is excessive.  Someone investing at age 18 might care about the subsequent 50 years.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s going to be a long time before some other country takes over the &amp;quot;reserve currency&amp;#x2F;investment market of last resort&amp;quot; position the US currently has.  No other market is even close to providing the deep liquidity and rule of law the US market has over a wide variety of instruments.&lt;p&gt;Sure, someone will eventually take over that role, but there are no candidates today.  And, to your point: it was clear by the late 19th century that the US dollar would displace Sterling, but it took another half a century for that to happen.  On the scale of current human lifespan, you can assume it won&amp;#x27;t happen at all.</text></item><item><author>danhak</author><text>Of course a country’s stock market will perform well as that country ascends to become the world’s dominant superpower.&lt;p&gt;The question is whether the power and influence of the U.S. will grow similarly over the next 150 years as it has over the last 150.&lt;p&gt;To invest mechanically without thinking about what’s actually happening in the world is cargo cult behavior.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dalbasal</author><text>Why is &amp;quot;reserve currency&amp;quot; the central issue?&lt;p&gt;Also, the US stock market, US Dollar and US economy&amp;#x2F;gdp aren&amp;#x27;t hard linked to one another these days. The companies listed can be selling to non US markets, employing internationally, founded internationally. They&amp;#x27;re just listing on the US stock market because well.. that&amp;#x27;s where the stock market is. The US could, in theory, become more or less popular a stock market regardless of its currency&amp;#x27;s popularity.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, both the Euro and RMB have similar size markets backing their currency. Neither one is currently &lt;i&gt;trying&lt;/i&gt; to displace the USD. I think the importance of owning the international currency is somewhat speculative.</text></comment>