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Price return vs total return by holding period: S&P 500 tracker, windows ending July 31, 2026

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-03, from Price Return vs Total Return: The Real Gap.

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Price return vs total return by holding period: S&P 500 tracker, windows ending July 31, 2026 — 5 rows by 4 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
horizonprice_return_pcttotal_return_pctdividend_points_pct
1-year18.219.51.3
3-year63.169.36.2
5-year70.782.612
10-year244.3304.560.2
20-year485736.9251.9
Rows × columns
5 × 4
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for Price return vs total return by holding period: S&P 500 tracker, windows ending July 31, 2026, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
horizon text 5 distinct values (1-year, 10-year, 20-year…)
price_return_pct number 18.2 to 485 percent
total_return_pct number 19.5 to 736.9 percent
dividend_points_pct number 1.3 to 251.9 percent

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number
WITH daily AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
           argMax(toFloat64(close), window_start) AS close
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= toDate('2006-07-31')
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) <= toDate('2026-07-31')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY d
),
spans AS (
    SELECT y AS years,
           concat(toString(y), '-year') AS horizon,
           subtractYears(toDate('2026-07-31'), y) AS start_date
    FROM (SELECT arrayJoin([1, 3, 5, 10, 20]) AS y)
),
divs AS (
    SELECT dv.ex_dividend_date AS d,
           log(1 + toFloat64(dv.cash_amount) / dl.close) AS log_growth
    FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends AS dv
    INNER JOIN daily AS dl ON dl.d = dv.ex_dividend_date
    WHERE dv.ticker = 'SPY'
      AND dv.cash_amount > 0
      AND dv.ex_dividend_date <= toDate('2026-07-31')
),
endpoints AS (
    SELECT s.horizon AS horizon,
           s.years AS years,
           argMin(dl.close, dl.d) AS start_px,
           argMax(dl.close, dl.d) AS end_px
    FROM spans AS s, daily AS dl
    WHERE dl.d >= s.start_date
    GROUP BY s.horizon, s.years
),
reinvest AS (
    SELECT s.years AS years,
           exp(sum(dvs.log_growth)) AS factor
    FROM spans AS s, divs AS dvs
    WHERE dvs.d > s.start_date
    GROUP BY s.years
)
SELECT e.horizon AS horizon,
       round(100 * (e.end_px / e.start_px - 1), 1) AS price_return_pct,
       round(100 * (e.end_px / e.start_px * r.factor - 1), 1) AS total_return_pct,
       round(100 * (e.end_px / e.start_px) * (r.factor - 1), 1) AS dividend_points_pct
FROM endpoints AS e
INNER JOIN reinvest AS r ON e.years = r.years
ORDER BY e.years

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