Summary
Below you can find the annualized performance statistics for the MSCI World index from 1970 to 2018. The MSCI World Index covers approximately 85% of the market capitalization in 23 developed nations. This is the total return, that means it includes reinvested dividends. You can read more about the difference between gross, net & price statistics here. We created these statistics based on MSCI World returns because as far as we know they can't be found anywhere else on the internet. There is one blog that seemingly has it, but it's results are based on price data and this gives a warped view for index investment purposes.
We can see some interesting things based on the data in this table. The median annualized return after 25 years was 11%, this means over half the people that would have kept an index fund based on MSCI world would have seen returns of 11% a year if they kept it for 25 years. This is 1% lower than the S&P 500, but historical data is not a good predictor for future performance. The next 50 years may be different. You have to keep in mind that this index includes Japan, and so it includes the Japanese asset price bubble of 1992.
Some other interesting facts:
- MSCI World has a 8.08% median 10 year annualized rate of return versus S&P 500's 11.57% from 1970-2018.
- MSCI World has a 8.78% median 15 year annualized return rate versus S&P 500's 10.94% from 1970-2018.
- MSCI World has a CAGR of 9.29% versus S&P 500's 10.21% from 1970-2018.
*CAGR = Compound Annual Growth Rate, annualized return over the entire period.
All in all i think it's a worthy index to invest in, although the S&P500 has seemingly outperformed it for the past 50 years, you never know what it's going to be like in the future.
