My source is the S&P 500, which has been around for a hundred years. You can pick the DOW if you like, as it has similar returns over the last hundred years.

My source is the S&P 500, which has been around for a hundred years. You can pick the DOW if you like, as it has similar returns over the last hundred years. Although, FYI, the 9.7% number I was using was not inflation adjusted. Perhaps that 7% number was inflation adjusted? That would make sense as the s&p inflation adjusted number comes out to be 7% almost exactly. This is not survivorship bias, as the way investing in the s&p 500 works is that it is a moving list of the top 500 companies market cap. IE, if a company goes down in price, and drops out of the top 500 companies, then so would your investment in it. And total returns take this into account. It is perfectly possible to simply invest in the market, and recieve market returns, if you are also willing to accept market risks. The stuff you are talking about, regarding risks, only matters to people who care about short term returns, not people who care about long term returns. And a pension fund, which has a time horizon of decades, seems like the very best example of a fund that would not care the slightly about short term risk, and can instead optimize for long term returns.