Periodic Table of Investment Returns

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]

Of late we've been studying Callan's Periodic Table of Investment Returns. Callan Associates are famous for presenting these charts free of cost to the world. Their Periodic Table of Investment Returns offers a comprehensive representation of relative asset class performance over the last 20 years. It depicts rankings of annual returns (best to worst) for eight asset classes which have been color-coded for easy tracking. Industry standard market indexes are used to represent each asset class. Figure 1 shows the periodic table of investment returns of eight asset classes based on Key Indices.

Figure 1: The periodic table of investment returns of eight asset classes based on Key Indices
[Please click on the image to zoom in for a better view]

If we study the Periodic Table of Investment Returns (Key Indices) for 2008, we can see that:

• BC Agg - Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index which tracks U.S. government, corporate and mortgage backed securities with maturities of at least one year is the only one with positive returns: 5.24%.


• MSCI EAFE - Morgan Stanley Capital International Index which measures the performance of the developed stock markets of Europe, Australasia and the Far East was down by 43.38%. In comparison the S&P 500 was down by 37%.
  So we see that though the US stock market was in bad shape in 2008, it still performed better than international developed stock markets. However the data for 2002-2007 shows just the reverse trend!


• In general the small cap sector performed better than large cap U.S. stocks.

In addition, Callan Associates offers three different periodic tables of investment returns based on: CSFT/Tremont Hedge Fund Indices, Key Indices including REITs, and Real Estate Indices.

Their latest versions are not free downloads. However, we can see these charts for past years (1991-2006) for FREE over here.

What are your observations about Callan's Periodic Table of Investment Returns based on Key Indices? Do you notice any patterns in the behavior of the different asset classes (1989 to 2008)? We are looking forward towards your views and feedback.

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