What 10,000 euros would have become in the MSCI World

📘 In Brief If you had invested 10,000 euros in the MSCI World 20 years ago, you would now have around 55,000 to 60,000 euros, including reinvested dividends. Without dividends, it would be roughly 38,000 euros, which clearly illustrates the compound interest effect. Most of the growth comes from the US, particularly from tech stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, which have strongly dominated the index in recent years. However, there were also setbacks: during the 2008 financial crisis, the portfolio temporarily lost over 40 percent, and 2022 also saw a drop of around 20 percent. Those who weathered these fluctuations were rewarded with an average annual return of about 8 to 9 percent. What mattered was not timing, but time in the market – a lump sum benefited most from the global stock market rally over the long term. 🔍 Why This Matters A one-time investment of 10,000 euros in the MSCI World (net index, excluding costs) would have grown to approximately 85,000 to 90,000 euros over the last 30 years (as of end of 2024), corresponding to an annualized return of around 7.5 percent. This increase results primarily from the compound interest effect, with roughly two-thirds of the return coming from price gains and one-third from reinvested dividends. The timing of the investment is crucial: those who entered in March 2000 (dot-com bubble) or October 2007 (financial crisis) had to wait over a decade just to break even before the index reached new highs. In contrast, an investor with a monthly savings plan over 30 years would have benefited from the corrections and achieved a higher return per euro invested than the lump-sum investor. Real purchasing power after inflation is …