I'm unsure of what you're trying to say here. Are you implying that you're not able to buy the same # of shares of an index fund as you were last year? WRT the

I'm unsure of what you're trying to say here. Are you implying that you're not able to buy the same # of shares of an index fund as you were last year? WRT the market doubling, there has been a lot of different reasons for it, QE increasing money supply that has been plowed into the stock market inflating values, top performers generally doing better relatively to society, and higher income individuals and families generally weathering the pandemic much better than low-income individuals and families. This is all to say that market performance is not tied to the pandemic in any particular way (in this case). Back to your other statement of not being able to purchase the same # of shares (if that was your point), it doesn't matter the # of shares you can buy per year, only the value of shares purchasable. The thread above you isn't calculating the # of shares increasing by 5% year, just the value of total shares . I care that the total value of my investments increases because that's what eventually matters when I start withdrawing, the # of shares I have could increase, but that wouldn't matter if the total value stays the same or decreases.