What Was the Best Portfolio Over the Last 50 Years?
A few months ago, I analyzed U.S. stock returns over the last century . Today, I'm going to determine the best portfolio over the last 50 years among the following asset classes: - U.S. Stocks - International Stocks - Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) - U.S. Corporate Bonds - 10-Year Treasury Notes - 3-month Treasury Bills - Gold - Commodities - U.S. Homes To do this, I examined the BullionVault annual return data from 1972-2025 (54 years) to determine the optimal/best portfolio over this time period. But before we look at the optimal portfolio, let's get a better understanding of how these various asset classes performed since 1972. How Have Assets Performed Since 1972? Since 1972, investors have experienced a wide range of outcomes including bull markets, bear markets, recessions, inflationary periods, and everything in between. As a result of this, asset class returns have varied widely as well. Below is a chart illustrating this for the nine asset classes listed abov