# What would $10,000 from 2000 be worth today? The same lump sum, bought in 2000 and held to 2026, priced across stocks, gold, Bitcoin, real estate, and bonds. Nominal dollars, before fees and taxes. Starting amount Starting year Primary asset Uninvested US dollars (no growth) ## Best of the compared assets Series 2026 · Face $10,000 · 2000 IV 10000 2000 2026 GO Series 2026 $164,194 Gold, held from 2000. $10,000 became +1541.9%. Gold turned $10,000 into $164,194 by 2026. ## Ledger $10,000 from 2000 | Asset | In 2026 | Total | CAGR | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Static USD | $10,000 | +0.0% | +0.00%/yr | | Gold | $164,194 | +1541.9% | +11.36%/yr | ## Growth over time 2 assets Compare withLog scale All values are approximations based on historical index/price data and are for educational purposes only. S&P 500 reflects price return only (excludes dividends; actual investor returns would be higher). Real estate data based on the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index. Bitcoin values before 2013 reflect an extremely illiquid market. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Advertisement ## Method This calculator shows how a lump-sum investment would have grown across different asset classes over any historical period. Enter a starting amount, choose a starting year, select your primary asset, and check any additional assets you'd like to compare. All assets are normalized to the same starting dollar value so you can compare them on equal footing. ### The formula For each year, your investment's value is scaled by how much that asset's price has changed relative to the starting price: Valueyear = Starting Amount × (Priceyear ÷ Pricestart) For example, $10,000 in the S&P 500 starting in 2000 (index: 1,320) to 2026 (index: 7,743): $10,000 × (7,743 ÷ 1,320) ≈ $58,650. Alongside that, the same $10,000 in Gold (2000: $279, 2026: $4,581) would have become approximately $164,194. ### Return metrics Two return figures are shown for each asset: **Total Return:** the overall percentage gain from start to end: ((End Price − Start Price) ÷ Start Price) × 100. **CAGR** (Compound Annual Growth Rate): the annualized return that would produce the same total result: (End Value ÷ Start Value)1/years − 1. CAGR normalizes for the time period, making it the best single number for comparing investments of different durations. ### Data sources Each asset uses a different underlying data series: **S&P 500:** year-end index price (price return only; actual investor returns including dividends would be roughly 1.5–2% higher annually). **Gold:** annual average spot price in USD per troy ounce. **US Real Estate:** S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, December of each year. **US Bonds:** Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index total return, year-end. **Bitcoin:** year-end USD price; data available from 2010. Values before 2013 reflect an extremely illiquid market. 2026 is not a finished year, so its column uses the latest data: closing prices on September 25, 2026 for the S&P 500 and Bitcoin, the January–August average for gold, June for Case-Shiller, and the year-to-date total return of an aggregate bond index fund for bonds. ### Log scale When assets with vastly different returns are plotted together (especially Bitcoin), the linear chart can compress all but the top-performing asset into a nearly flat line. Switching to log scale maps equal percentage changes to equal vertical distances, making it much easier to see the relative performance of slower-growing assets alongside extreme outliers. ### Important limitations This calculator assumes a single lump-sum investment with no additions, withdrawals, or rebalancing. It excludes transaction costs, management fees, and taxes, all of which reduce real-world returns. S&P 500 dividends are not included. Real estate figures represent price appreciation only; rental income and carrying costs (mortgage, maintenance, property tax) are excluded. All figures are nominal (not inflation-adjusted). Use this tool to understand historical trends, not to make investment decisions. ## Frequently asked questions 28 answers Based on year-end prices (price return, excluding dividends), the S&P 500 compounded at about 9.2% per year from the end of 1990 to 2026, growing from 330 to 7,743 (the close on September 25, 2026), a total gain of about 2,245%. With dividends reinvested, the S&P 500 total return index compounded at roughly 11% a year over the same span, which shows how much dividends add when compounded over decades. The S&P 500 had its worst decade since the Great Depression in the 2000s. From year-end 1999 to year-end 2009, it fell from 1,469 to 1,115, a price return loss of roughly 24% over 10 years. The decade included the dot-com crash (2000–2002, down 40%) and the 2008 financial crisis (down 38.5%), making it the only full decade with a negative price return since before WWII. Based on year-end prices (excluding dividends), $10,000 in the S&P 500 at the end of 2000 would be worth about $58,600 in 2026, a 486% total return, or about 7.0% per year over 26 years. Including reinvested dividends, actual investor returns would be meaningfully higher. Try any starting year in the calculator above. Based on year-end prices, the S&P 500 fell in 1994 (-1.5%), 2000 (-10.1%), 2001 (-13.0%), 2002 (-23.4%), 2008 (-38.5%), 2015 (-0.7%), 2018 (-6.2%), 2022 (-19.4%), and finished 2011 flat. Down years cluster around recessions and credit crises, and in this dataset each has been followed by recovery over a multi-year horizon. Price return tracks changes in the index's price level only. Total return includes dividends reinvested, historically adding 1.5–2.5 percentage points per year. Over 30 years that gap is enormous: $10,000 at price-return CAGR might grow to ~$85,000 while the same amount with dividends reinvested could reach $175,000+. This calculator shows price return only. It depends on the time period. Bitcoin has delivered the highest returns since 2010 but with extreme volatility and multi-year 70%+ drawdowns. Gold significantly outperformed stocks in the 2000s. The S&P 500 has compounded at roughly 10% annually (including dividends) over long periods, making it the most consistent long-term compounder among traditional asset classes. Gold's average price rose from $383 an ounce in 1990 to about $4,581 in 2026 (the average so far this year), a gain of about 1,096%, or 7.1% per year. Performance has been uneven: gold was flat-to-negative in the 1990s, more than tripled in the 2000s, retreated in the early 2010s, and surged again in the 2020s as central bank buying and geopolitical uncertainty drove demand. Gold has a mixed record as an inflation hedge. Over very long periods it roughly preserves purchasing power, but over shorter windows it diverges sharply from CPI: gold lost value in real terms during the high-inflation 1980s, then surged during the relatively low-inflation 2000s. It works better as a hedge against currency debasement and systemic financial stress than as a short-term CPI tracker. Gold held up well in 2008. On the London PM fix it ended the year about 4% higher ($833.75 to $869.75 an ounce) while the S&P 500 fell 38.5%. Measured by annual averages, as this calculator does, gold rose 25% from 2007 to 2008 ($697 to $872). This divergence from equities during a crisis is the core reason investors use gold as a portfolio diversifier. The pattern repeated in 2022, when gold finished the year roughly flat while the S&P 500 fell about 19%. Gold dramatically outperformed the S&P 500 in the 2000s. $10,000 in gold at 1999's average price ($279/oz) grew to about $34,800 at 2009's average ($972/oz), a 248% gain. The same $10,000 in the S&P 500 from year-end 1999 to year-end 2009 (1,469 to 1,115) fell to about $7,600, a 24% loss. This decade is the strongest example of gold's performance advantage over equities. From 2006 to 2026, gold's average price rose from $604 to $4,581 an ounce, a gain of about 658%, far outpacing cumulative CPI inflation of about 65% over the same period. From 1990 to 1999, however, gold fell 27% in nominal terms and lost more than 40% of its value after inflation. Gold's inflation-beating properties are heavily time-period-dependent. $1,000 invested in Bitcoin at year-end 2015 (about $430) would be worth about $195,400 at the September 25, 2026 price (about $84,035), a gain of about 19,443% over 11 years. That return meant sitting through several drawdowns of 50% to 80% along the way. No traditional asset class comes close to those figures. Bitcoin's compound annual growth rate from year-end 2010 ($0.30) to September 25, 2026 (about $84,035) was about 119% per year, meaning its price more than doubled on average every year for 16 years. That figure includes multiple 70%+ drawdowns, so the smooth average masks extraordinary volatility. No traditional asset has come close over any comparable period. In 2024, Bitcoin gained about 121% (from about $42,265 to $93,429) while the S&P 500 rose about 23% on a price basis. Bitcoin's surge followed the January 2024 approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs and the April 2024 halving. Over shorter windows, Bitcoin's returns are episodic and driven by regulatory and macro catalysts rather than underlying earnings. Bitcoin significantly outperformed gold. A $10,000 investment at year-end 2020 (about $28,990/BTC) grew to about $32,200 by year-end 2024, a 222% return. The same amount in gold, at 2020 and 2024 average prices, grew to about $13,500, a 35% gain. Gold delivered solid returns; Bitcoin delivered multiples more. The investment calculator lets you compare any custom amount and starting year. Bitcoin's worst calendar year in this dataset was 2018, when it fell from about $14,156 to $3,742, a loss of 74%, as the 2017 ICO boom unwound. 2022 was nearly as bad: a 64% drop (from $46,306 to $16,547) that coincided with the Terra/Luna collapse, the FTX bankruptcy, and aggressive Fed rate hikes. Multi-year 60–80% bear markets are a recurring feature of its history. From year-end 2016 to September 25, 2026, Bitcoin grew from about $963 to about $84,035, a return of about 8,626%. Gold's average price rose from about $1,251 to $4,581 over the same decade, a return of about 266%. Bitcoin outperformed gold by a factor of roughly 24×, though with dramatically higher volatility and several drawdowns of 50% or more. CAGR stands for Compound Annual Growth Rate, the annualized rate of return that would produce the same end result if the investment grew at a perfectly steady rate each year. It is calculated as (End Value ÷ Start Value) raised to the power of (1 ÷ years) minus 1. CAGR is more useful than total return for comparing investments held over different time periods. Total return is the overall percentage gain, for example 300%. CAGR is the annualized rate that would produce that same total, for example 5.7% per year if the 300% took 25 years. CAGR controls for duration, making it the right tool for comparison. A 200% total return over 5 years (CAGR: 24.6%) is far superior to a 200% total return over 20 years (CAGR: 5.6%). Use CAGR, which normalizes any total return into an annualized figure, making fair comparison possible regardless of holding period. A 3-year investment and a 15-year investment can both be expressed as X% per year. This calculator computes CAGR automatically for all selected assets so you can compare them on a level playing field. A 10% annual CAGR turns $10,000 into approximately $67,275 over 20 years, nearly a 7x increase. In year 1 you earn $1,000; by year 20 you earn over $6,100 that year alone, because the compounding base keeps growing. This is why the S&P 500's long-run ~10% total return (including dividends) has been so transformative for patient investors. Nominal return is the raw percentage gain. Real return subtracts inflation; if your investment returned 8% and inflation was 3%, your real return was roughly 5%. Real return measures how much your purchasing power actually grew. Over 30 years, a 7% nominal return at 3% inflation yields only about a 4% real return, a significant difference in final wealth. $10,000 at 8% annual growth becomes $21,589 after 10 years, $46,610 after 20 years, and $100,627 after 30 years, all without adding another dollar. The growth rate is the same each year, but the base keeps expanding, so late-year gains dwarf early ones. Starting a decade earlier has a bigger impact than most investors intuitively expect. From December 1990 to 2026, the Case-Shiller national home price index rose from 76.0 to 336.7, about 343% price appreciation, or about 4.2% per year. The S&P 500 returned about 9.2% per year (price only) over the same period. Real estate's total investor returns are higher when rental income is included, but lower when mortgage interest, taxes, and maintenance are subtracted. The Case-Shiller national index peaked at 184.6 in July 2006, then fell to 134.0 by February 2012, a drop of about 27% from peak. Recovery was slow: the index did not regain its 2006 peak until early 2017. The collapse was caused by subprime mortgage defaults, excessive leverage, and widespread failures in mortgage-backed securities across the global banking system. The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller index (formerly S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller) tracks repeat-sale residential real estate prices, comparing each home's current price to its prior sale price to isolate pure price changes from compositional shifts. This calculator uses the national index (CSUSHPINSA, January 2000 = 100), taking each year's December value; it is the broadest available measure of US home price trends. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond index (modeled here as 100 at the end of 1990) grew to about 530 by 2026, a 430% total return, or about 4.7% per year. Bonds had their worst calendar year in modern history in 2022 (down about 13%) as the Fed raised its policy rate from near zero to 4.25–4.5%. Rising rates push existing bond prices down because newer bonds offer higher yields. US investment-grade bonds have outpaced inflation over long periods, but the margin is narrow. The Bloomberg US Agg returned about 4.7% a year from 1990 to 2026 while CPI inflation averaged about 2.6%, a real return of about 2.1% per year. During high-inflation periods like 2021–2022, bonds delivered deeply negative real returns, underscoring that they're better diversifiers than inflation hedges.