Economy

average return in the U.S. stock market, as measured by the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund VTSMX. A $10,000 account would have grown to $39,069 during that 22.13 year period.

Despite suffering thru 3 major crashes: the dot com crash, the housing bubble crash, and the pandemic crash.

This when investing at the very worst time. Investing at any other time either before or after would have gained a better average annualized return for any 10 year or longer time period with an end point of today, May 11.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VTSMX/history
The pre-dotcom crash peak of this fund was 3/23/2000
Using the Adjusted Close which includes the dividends and other distributions.

(The last data as of this posting on VTSMX is 5/10/22. I multiplied by the ratio of the S&P 500 between May 10 to May 11 to get an estimate of what VTSMX will be on May 11 when posted.)