I used to post these benchmark updates here years ago. I still track the Vanguard lazy portfolio returns (Aggressive, Balanced, Conservative) as a basis for comparison.
As a hobby project to teach myself some web dev, I rebuilt my old spreadsheet as a free calculator to automate it (SinceInception.com). I think everyone should pay attention to these and use them as their portfolio benchmarks, especially for those that pick their own stocks.
2025 was a strong year and 2026 is already off to a great start.
|**Portfolio**|**2025 Total**|**2026 YTD**|
|:-|:-|:-|
|**Aggressive**|**23.1%**|**2.9%**|
|**Balanced**|**16.2%**|**1.8%**|
|**Conservative**|**11.7%**|**1.1%**|
|**Risk Free**|**4.1%**|**0.1%**|
I run an active portfolio myself, and seeing the gap in actual dollars has definitely changed how I view the time and effort I put into investing.
I'll drop the link in the comments to avoid the spam filters if anyone wants to run their own numbers.