News about returns

A $10,000 stake in the S&P 500 at the close on Jan. 4, 1988, grew to about $300,000 by the Oct. 26 close on price alone, a gain of about 9.2% a year. With all dividends reinvested, the same stake reached roughly $673,000, or about 11.5% a year. The gap was small at first but widened after 2018, when the reinvested stake was about $195,000 versus $98,000 for price only. An investor who took dividends as cash ended with about $349,000, a bit more than half the reinvested result. The author believes reinvesting still makes sense for money that doesn't need to pay bills, though dividends added only about 1.3 points to the index's return over the past 12 months.

There is a wide disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, and AI could push the two even further apart.

Strength in Microsoft's stock sets up an options trade aimed at a return above 20%. The article gives no further detail on the trade.