What If You Had Invested in SPY 10 Years Ago?

SPY: all at once or every month?

Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 1993 (395 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 314 (79%). The lump sum usually won, but roughly one start in 5 favored spreading it out. The best case for monthly investing was a start in May 2008, when it finished the year 40% ahead.

Worst drop

SPY's worst fall in this history was -50.8%, a loss of more than half, from October 2007 to February 2009. Getting back to the old high took until March 2012: 37 months from the bottom and 4.4 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $492 at the low.

SPY dividends

SPY paid $7.58 per share over the last 12 months, quarterly. At $733.00 that is 1.03%, a small yield; nearly all of the return has come from the price. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +5.1% a year, steadily. The yearly total did not fall once in the last ten years.

Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.

SPY dividend history: last 12 payments

About SPY

Fund details as of 2025. Check the issuer for the current expense ratio and holdings.

SPY was the first U.S.-listed ETF, launched in January 1993, and it is still the most traded fund in the world. It holds the S&P 500, so its long history makes it the standard way to see how the U.S. large-cap market has done since the early 1990s.

Because it is set up as a unit investment trust, SPY cannot lend its shares or reinvest dividends inside the fund between payouts. That, plus a higher fee than VOO or IVV, is why buy-and-hold investors often pick one of those instead. Traders favor SPY for its huge volume and options market.

A lesson in start dates

SPY's long history includes two of the hardest stretches for U.S. stocks. Someone who bought at the top in 2000 was underwater through two crashes and did not stay ahead for good until late 2011, more than a decade later, even with dividends reinvested. Someone who added money every month through those years did much better, because they kept buying at low prices. Try a start of January 2000 in the What If box above with monthly investing turned on to see the difference.

Why traders still use it

SPY trades more shares and more options than any other ETF. That makes it the tool of choice for hedging and short-term trading, even though its fee is about three times VOO's. For someone who buys and holds, the fee difference is small in dollars but it adds up over decades, which is why long-term investors usually prefer VOO or IVV.

Questions about SPY

How much would $10,000 invested in SPY 20 years ago be worth today?

About $75,183 with dividends reinvested, invested at the November 2006 close: 651.8% in total, or 10.6% a year.

When does SPY pay dividends?

In the last 12 months the payments went out in March, June, September and December, $7.58 per share in total.

Did SPY beat QQQ?

No. Over the last 20 years it trailed by 4.7 percentage points a year: +10.6% a year for SPY against +15.3% for QQQ, dividends reinvested. Its worst fall was milder than QQQ's over the same history (-50.8% against -81.1%).