Login | April 04, 2026
What Gains To Expect
Motley Fool
Published: March 17, 2026
Q. What long-term returns should I expect of the stock market? -- S.B., Sitka, Alaska
A. You shouldn't expect any specific return, as no one knows how the stock market will perform from day to day or year to year. (Its overall direction has always been up, though, despite plenty of occasional downturns, both big and small.)
However, you can look at historic returns to guide your expectations: Over the past 75 years (as of the end of January), the market, as measured by the S&P 500 index of 500 of America's biggest companies, has averaged annual gains of 8%. With dividends reinvested along the way, that average rises to 11%. The averages for the past 10, 25 and 50 years were respectively 14%, 7% and 9%, with reinvested returns being higher.
It's reasonable to hope for double-digit average gains over your investing period, but don't count on them. Note, too, that the returns above are "nominal," meaning they ignore the existence of inflation. To estimate "real" returns, which do factor it in, subtract the rate of inflation, which has historically averaged around 3% annually. That would turn a 10% nominal gain into a real gain of around 7%.
Q. What's the "closing tick"? -- V.S., Greensburg, Pennsylvania
A. It's the difference between the number of stocks that closed on an "uptick " (that is, with their last trade occurring at a higher price than the previous one) and the number that closed on a "downtick." If you invest for the long term, as we recommend, it won't be a meaningful measure and you can feel free to ignore it.
Fool's School
Don't Neglect Estate Planning
It's easy to avoid thinking and planning for death, especially when we're still relatively young, but the Grim Reaper comes for young people on occasion, and for us all eventually. Get some estate planning done, and you can save your loved ones a lot of hassles and perhaps a lot of money, too. Here are some things to know:
Death often triggers probate, the legal process of administering an estate. It involves demonstrating that a will is valid, valuing and distributing the deceased's property, paying debts and taxes, transferring titles and more. It can be a lengthy and costly hassle, sometimes leaving assets in limbo until everything is settled.
Check the rules for your state, because you can probably bypass probate by taking certain steps now, such as setting up a legal document like a living trust. This lets you formally transfer assets and properties to your heirs before you die. You might also designate "transfer on death" or "payable on death" beneficiaries on various financial accounts, permitting the accounts' assets to pass directly to the beneficiaries on your death.
Above all, be sure that you don't die "intestate" -- without having prepared a will. Without a will, your estate will be handled according to government rules, with your assets distributed according to formulas, often involving court proceedings.
To learn more, search for "estate planning" at sites such as NCOA.org, Nolo.com and AARP.org. Or check out books such as "Nolo's Guide to Estate Planning" by Liza W. Hanks or "Essential Estate Planning for Beginners: Protect Assets by Avoiding Probate, Reduce Taxes and Minimize Expenses, Ease the Legal Burden for Loved Ones" by Freeman Publishing. Also consider consulting an estate planning professional.
Spend a little time getting your affairs in order. Then revisit your plans now and then to see if anything needs updating -- particularly when people have entered or left your life since you last made your plans.
My Smartest Investment
Held Gold for Decades
My smartest investment? Well, in 1971, just before President Nixon ended the gold standard, my father bought a plastic sleeve of South African Krugerrands. I think he got a dozen for around $35 each. The clerk at the store where he bought them encouraged my father to buy more, but he didn't. Too bad for me! They sit safely in a safe deposit box, but with gold now trading at close to $5,000 per ounce, that's a stratospheric return on investment! -- N.S., San Diego
The Fool responds: It is indeed. A Krugerrand contains an ounce of gold, so your 12 coins are now worth around $60,000. Gold hasn't always been a great investment, though. As Wharton business school professor Jeremy Siegel noted in his book "Stocks for the Long Run," an investment in gold between 1946 and 2021 would have averaged annual real gains of just 1.6%. Between 1982 and 1999, it would have averaged an annual real loss of 4.9%. How an investment in gold will perform depends on which years you hold it, and no one knows how it will do from year to year. It's the same with stocks, but stocks are generally tied to growing businesses and not just to the value of a metal.
(Do you have a smart or regrettable investment move to share with us? Email it to TMFShare@fool.com.)
Foolish Trivia
Name That Company
I trace my roots back to 1963, when a fellow bought a 1,200-subscriber cable system in Tupelo, Mississippi. I bought a marketing firm and a Muzak franchise next. By 1988, I was a leading U.S. cable company, and by 2009, America's largest internet service provider. I later bought NBCUniversal and a controlling interest in Sky. Today, with a market value recently topping $110 billion, I'm a media and theme park giant, encompassing names such as Xfinity, NBC, Telemundo, Universal, Peacock, Dreamworks Animation and Bravo. I boast 350,000 miles of fiber and more than 60 million customers on my network. Who am I?
Last Week's Trivia Answer
I trace my roots back to 1916, when a fellow in New York launched the Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company, selling produce from a pushcart. In 1930, he and his brother opened a 20,000-square-foot store, which was huge at the time (and featured a cafeteria inside). Today, I operate 114 East Coast supermarkets and employ more than 50,000 people. I'm privately held and am still run by the same family. I've ranked as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" by Fortune magazine for 28 consecutive years, and I have extremely loyal workers and customers. Who am I? (Answer: Wegmans)
The Motley Fool Take
A Promising Chip Company
Like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) designs and markets semiconductor chips, such as central processing units (CPUs) and graphics accelerator cards. It has several notable brands under its umbrella, including Ryzen CPUs, Epyc CPUs and the Instinct GPU (graphics processing unit) line for data centers and cloud servers.
AMD's main products were historically known as a cheaper alternative to Intel CPUs, and for years, it operated in Intel's shadow. But as Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs began to fly off the shelves to meet the exponentially growing demand for artificial intelligence, customers like OpenAI began looking for alternatives to meet their internal needs, and AMD's Instinct AI accelerators stepped in to fill that gap.
For the fourth quarter of 2025, AMD reported that revenue grew 34% year over year to $10.3 billion. These excellent results showed that usage of AMD's AI offerings (data center and consumer-grade chips) has been increasing across the board.
AMD still has a significant growth runway. The AI chip market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.7% and reach nearly $565 billion by 2032. That means, despite Nvidia keeping a big chunk of that pie, there's still plenty of room for other companies to grow as well. (The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia.)
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