The Chart of the Day is available just for the asking. I have added a few annotations and lines as it illustrates quite well how this has been an ongoing bear market since ‘99. There is the usual a-b-c corrective structure and depending on what degree of cycle you assume we are in the market should hold at the horizontal line. Things could get more dire of you make the assumption that the top we had was of a super cycle degree.
In any event the 10% real return over 40 years, on an index that is massaged to a great extent and not taking into account human behavior of buying high and selling low, and not making any allowances for 1.5-2% MERs, is pretty awful. Makes one wonder if stock returns are simple a monetary phenomenon.