FinObservatory

Rate of return on everything

Portugal

What one unit of currency became

Invested in 1948 and held to 2020, after inflation. Equities ended at 0.6x, housing at 86.4x, bonds at 1.2x and bills at 0.6x. The scale is logarithmic, because over a century of compounding a linear axis would flatten three of these four lines into the floor. The dashed line is 1.0: below it, the asset lost purchasing power.

1x10x1950197520000.6x86x1.2x0.6x
EquitiesHousingBondsBillsbanking crisis (JST)

Source: Jorda-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, Release 6 (Jorda, Knoll, Kuvshinov, Schularick & Taylor) Compounded over the 73 years in which all four assets were reported. Shaded bars are JST's own banking-crisis years. Methodology

Compound annual real return

AssetReal returnExcluding the warsVolatilityObservationsSpan
Equities0.86%0.85%24.781501871-2020
Housing6.30%6.30%8.52731948-2020
Bonds1.50%2.28%15.671501871-2020
Bills-0.54%0.29%9.271411880-2020

Source: Jorda-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, Release 6 (Jorda, Knoll, Kuvshinov, Schularick & Taylor) Nominal returns deflated by JST's own consumer price index. 3 observations are flagged by JST as interpolated and included. Methodology

Coverage for Portugal

Equities 150 years, housing 73, bonds 150, bills 141. JST flags 5 banking crisis years for this country, marked on the chart. An average taken over a short series is a weaker statistic than one taken over a long series, and the counts are here so you can tell which you are reading.

Methodology