I took an estate planning course while in college in the 1960s, and I seem to recall the instructors talking about 7% annual return as being a reasonable and safe “target” for your investments.
I don’t think you can directly look at the DOW over these years and calculate the annual return of the component stocks. The DOW is an index number based on the daily sales price of the component stocks. It doesn’t really reflect the stock’s earnings (dividends). It just reflects stock appreciation. The earnings re-invested act like compound interest and can build the total quite quickly... over time.
DOH!!!!!
Dividends! Ok, yeah, that may change things drastically.
Nobody beat Dave Ramsey up just yet.