Everyone always says the U.S. stock market averages ~10% long term (thinking S&P 500).
But now it feels like every “expert” (capital market forecasters) is suddenly calling for 4–6% returns going forward because of valuations, interest rates, etc.
At the same time, people in the past didn’t exactly predict the massive returns we’ve already had.
So what’s your take:
Do you actually buy the idea that returns will be significantly lower going forward?
Or is this just the usual “this time is different” narrative in reverse?
If you had to pick a number for the next 30–50 years, what are you betting on?
Feels like people have been predicting lower returns forever… and the market just keeps doing its thing.
Curious where everyone here lands.
Do you actually believe the “future returns will be lower” narrative?
byu/Inabizp ininvesting
Posted by Inabizp
25 Comments
I really don’t care one way or the other, a good portfolio isn’t built around returns, it is built around managing risk.
Older slower corporations are going to provide lower returns. Faster innovative companies – the tiny minority – will bring in massive upside.
What expert? There are experts saying different things every single day, who are we listening to today?
I am forecasting 5% in my tool. If it is higher some years, the yay me. But that is what is plugged into my tool.
I would be betting on higher returns driven by unrelenting inflation and increasing monetary supply.
I converted 30% of my portfolio to international a year ago due to the current climate of the US. Been working out great – international is far outpacing US returns in the last year or so
US stocks have averaged 6.5% real growth for like 100 years
“Experts” have no idea what future returns will be, imo. I just ignore them.
Predicting 30-50 years out is stupid. Listening to people try to predict 30-50 years out is stupid. Not taking a moment to realize we can’t accurately predict 1 year out is stupid.
Real returns may be lower, i.e. relative to other (non-cash generating) asset prices, but given the easing cycle we are in, nominal returns will likely be quite high.
Don’t worry about it and just invest at your risk tolerance. Play the long game. And unless you want to drink coffee by the keg, avoids Sandisk traps.
Have a look at historical returns when multiples are this high. History doesn’t repeat but it often rhymes
I believe they are proposing that the value of stocks rising will be less that in the past due to currency debasement. Reference this chart: [https://www.macrotrends.net/1437/sp500-to-gold-ratio-chart](https://www.macrotrends.net/1437/sp500-to-gold-ratio-chart)
Reversion to the mean. Could be volatile.
I do. It did exactly that after I bought.
I think it’s extremely unlikely the next 10 years will see 11% REAL returns like we have for the previous 10 years. We’re in the middle of an extremely long and extremely aggressive bull run, it’s can’t continue for another 10+ years like this (or extremely unlikely at least).
nobody knows… if u talk about 30-50 years just cintinously invest in QQQ and dont think about it too much
Doesn’t matter what we believe. What matters and must be planned for is the possibility. I’ve built all of my retirement planning around intentionally bad case inputs. 6% ROI, minimum raises for the next 6”5 years before removing raise assumptions from remaining years, etc.
This has kept us ahead of schedule each year.
The “experts” are always beating the doomer drum. 5 years ago BOA said it would be 2% returns for next ten years. They want people to be afraid enough to let them manage their portfolio for a fee as that’s how they make money.
Plan for the worst, hope (and appreciate) the best. Experts can’t decide on what will happen tomorrow on the S&P 500 let alone next year. Nobody on Reddit is an expert.
The only real metric we have to go off is P/E and it’s high. Very high. IMO the best we can do is a steady 4-6%/year for the next 5 years. But I said that in 2022 as well and the market has done 15%+ since then so I’m in the non-expert Reddit group.
This has been a narrative for 25 years
Over the past century, US stocks had nominal 10% CAGR.
Going forward, Vanguard is predicting nominal 6% over the next 30 years:
[https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/vemo/vemo-return-forecasts.html](https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/vemo/vemo-return-forecasts.html)
And PWL Capital is forecasting nominal 6.57%:
[https://pwlcapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260130_Winter-2026-FPA-Market-Cap-Portfolio-EN.pdf](https://pwlcapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260130_Winter-2026-FPA-Market-Cap-Portfolio-EN.pdf)
95% of industry investors didn’t see the dotcom bubble or the GFC coming (atleast not until it was too late). Why tf would I believe what anyone says is going to happen 30+ years from now?
We joke about dytopia but for real who knows how that’s going to trickle up. The mega caps are driving a lot of the speculation of overvaluation, but the world economy is giving a lot of advantage for large scale endeavors and giving them far reaching markets.
I’m slightly pessimistic but look at the top 100 companies and there are few I would hard pass on going into the future.
Yes – who knows about nominal returns which don’t really matter.
But it seems to me real returns will be lower because of the following.
– Some US market returns have come from the US eating the world’s stock market. But there isn’t loads left to eat. Past global returns are therefore probably a better proxy for future growth.
– Some returns have come from productivity gains, which are increasingly difficult to keep going at the same rate
– Some returns have come from increasing PE ratios, and while these could increase further – they can’t literally increase *forever* which is what would be needed to sustain the same rate
– climate change really starting to ramp up and breaking some markets
– demographic shifts – richest generation ever dying, lots of stock to be sold off there even though much will just pass through.
– the tension now between further efficiencies – if they were to be from AI – killing off labour and therefore demand for companies’ products.
– we haven’t had an actual black swan event under the decades we tend consider. One day we will get one