The S&P 500 Won’t Average 10% Annual Returns For The Next 10 Years
Goldman Sachs Estimates Long-Term Index Returns of Just 4–5% per Year
Goldman Sachs published a landmark research paper in October 2024 forecasting significantly lower long-term returns for U.S. equities. The message was clear: the S&P 500 is unlikely to repeat its past performance over the next 10–15 years.
Market Concentration Just a handful of mega-cap tech stocks now drive most of the index’s gains.
Valuations Are Stretched The S&P 500 trades at historically high price-to-earnings ratios.
Earnings Growth Slowing Rising rates and tighter economic conditions will limit future profit growth.
Yields Are Low With dividends at multi-decade lows, reinvested income won’t do the heavy lifting.
Howard Marks Believes Index’s Average Annual Returns Will Be Between -2% and 2%
Howard Marks has long warned that periods of strong market returns are often followed by long stretches of underperformance. With valuations high and interest rates no longer near zero, Marks believes passive investing is now dangerous complacency.
Valuations Matter More Than Ever Buying expensive assets means accepting weaker future returns.
Past Returns Won’t Repeat The stimulus-driven bull run of the 2010s is over.
Passive Flows Distort Markets Capital is being funneled into the biggest companies regardless of fundamentals.
Mohnish Pabrai Predicts S&P 500 Returns Will Be Less Than 3% Annually for the Next Decade
According to Pabrai, today’s S&P 500 is priced for disappointment. With valuations high and concentration risk rising, the broad index offers little upside. Instead, he champions a more focused approach: invest like the world's best stock pickers.
S&P 500 Is Too Expensive You're paying a premium for average performance.
S&P 500 Is Too Concentrated Tech giants make up a disproportionate share of the index.
S&P 500 Is Too Passive There's no edge in owning everything.
What Low S&P 500 Returns Mean for Your Long-Term Wealth
When the most respected names in finance—Goldman Sachs, Howard Marks, and Mohnish Pabrai—are all warning the same thing, it’s a clear pattern. We believe the S&P 500 is unlikely to deliver the returns investors have come to expect because it's overvalued and overly concentrated.
We believe you can’t count on passive index investing to deliver real wealth in a low-return era. We believe at Super Value Investors we give you the solution to outperform the market by investing with a research-led copycat investing strategy's of the best value investors in the world.