I’m holding in my hands a hot-off-the-press Report from the well-respected research firm, DALBAR, Inc., about the actual returns investors have been getting in the stock market over the last 20 years. The news is shocking, but should make sense if you’ve been having the feeling your investment accounts aren’t rising at the rate the market has been…

• The average equity fund investor has gotten less than half of the return of the S&P 500 over the last two decades – beating inflation by less than 1% per year
• The average fixed income investor got – you should probably sit down for this – only 15% of the return of the related benchmark (Barclay’s Aggregate Bond Index)
• The typical asset allocation investor got less than 30% of the return of the S&P 500 – 2.12% per year to be exact – and didn’t even keep up with inflation!

So… was that worth all the roller coaster ups and downs and sleepless nights?

[Read more…] “Shocking New Report Wall Street Doesn’t Want You To See”