The Australian equity market is the best market in the world based on returns since 1900 according to a recent Credit Suisse study. Australian stocks have historically performed well over the long period with average returns of over 13% per year. I have written about historical returns earlier here and here.

In this post, let’s take a quick at the annual returns from 1980 thru 2019. In most of the years, Australian shares yielded positive returns as shown in the chart below. In fact, the number of positive return years is far higher than the number of years in which stocks lost money.

Click to enlarge

Note: The returns shown above are based on local currency and not US dollars. The index used is the All Ordinaries Accumulation Index which includes dividends reinvested.

Source: Market Index

Related ETF:

•  iShares MSCI Australia Index Fund (EWA)

Disclosure: No Positions