Real Return Calculator (Inflation-Adjusted)

How to use the calculator

1. Type a US stock or ETF symbol, for example SPY for the S&P 500.
2. Pick the From and To months. The investment is bought and valued at the month-end closing price.
3. Choose whether dividends are reinvested. Most of a stock index’s long-term real return comes with dividends included.

How the real return is calculated

return     = price(To) / price(From)            (total-return prices with dividends)
inflation  = CPI(To) / CPI(From)
real return = return / inflation − 1
real return a year = (return / inflation)^(1 / years) − 1

The real return is a division, not a subtraction. A 10% return with 4% inflation is a real return of 5.77%, not 6%. The difference grows when rates are high or the period is long.

Prices are split-adjusted month-end closes from the same data as the Quotelinks stock pages. Inflation is the US CPI-U from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPI comes out about two weeks after each month ends, so the current month uses the latest published CPI.

Reading the result

• Real return above zero: the investment bought more at the end than the money did at the start.
• Worth in start-month dollars: the end value in the prices of the first month. Compare it with the amount you put in.
• Needed to keep up: what the amount had to grow to just to keep its buying power.
• Real return by year: years with high inflation, such as 2022, can turn a positive return negative.

Related questions

• How did cash do over the same months? Try the cash vs inflation calculator.
• Return without inflation, with the dividend part split out: the stock return calculator.
• What prices did between any two dates since 1913: the historical inflation calculator.

Real returns in practice

Inflation matters most over long periods and in years when it runs high. In 2022, for example, US consumer prices rose 6.5% from December to December, so even an investment that held its value lost about 6% of its buying power. Over decades, an inflation rate of 3% halves the buying power of money in about 24 years, which is why long-term savings need to grow faster than prices just to stand still.

Frequently asked questions

Related calculators

• Stock Return Calculator With DividendsTotal return, price return and the part added by dividends for any stock or ETF between two months.
• What If I Had Invested CalculatorWhat an investment in any US stock or ETF in any past month would be worth today, vs the S&P 500.
• Cash vs Inflation CalculatorHow cash in a money market fund or earning nothing did against inflation, month by month since 1954.
• Historical Inflation CalculatorWhat an amount from any year or month since 1913 is worth in another, from official US CPI data.

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