What if you bought FTSE 100 in 1990?

Countries · UK. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.

The story

The FTSE 100 holds the largest companies listed in London, and has long been an index of oil majors, miners, banks, drugmakers and tobacco rather than technology. It caught enough of the late-1990s mania to peak near 7,000 at the end of 1999, then halved in the bust. A commodity boom lifted it again until the 2008 crisis, when Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds needed state rescues and the index sank once more.

For most of the next two decades the FTSE seemed stuck below its millennium high, a story of old-economy companies at a time when the market rewarded new-economy growth. The 2016 Brexit vote had an odd effect: the pound fell, and because most FTSE companies earn their money abroad, the index actually rose in sterling terms. The price chart also undersells it, because London-listed companies paid famously generous dividends. Only in the 2020s, with energy and banks back in favour, did it settle at clearly higher records.

The lesson: When an index pays high dividends, its price chart tells only half the story, and comparing price indices across countries can mislead badly.

$1,000 invested at the start of each year

green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money

Best entry point in our set: 1990, turning $1,000 into $4,042. The S&P 500 from that same year: $19,429.

On this day

• 24 June 2016: Britain votes for Brexit and markets panic
• 7 July 2005: London bombings, and a market that held its nerve
• 14 September 2007: Northern Rock triggers Britain's first bank run in generations
• 21 September 1931: Britain leaves the gold standard

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