UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2025: 125 Years of Market Insights and Lessons

The newly released 2025 UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook offers a fascinating look back at 125 years of financial market performance—from 1900 to 2025. Available as a free 22-page PDF featuring 10 major insights, this annual report is a treasure trove for long-term investors and historians alike. It distills more than a century of market data, providing perspective that stands in stark contrast to today’s short-term financial noise and daily market chatter. If you want to understand how economies, equities, and bonds have evolved over time, this publication remains one of the most comprehensive resources in global finance.

UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook documents long-run returns on stocks, bonds, bills, currencies and other assets since 1900. Its goal is to inform investors about long-run historical performance, to interpret it, analyze it, learn from it, and help illuminate current concerns.

I definitely recommend downloading the report and at least scrolling through the historical charts and headline insights. The lessons may be familiar, but they are a good reminder of what builds wealth over the long run.

• The composition of the stock market changes significantly over time.
• Stock outperformance over bonds and cash over the long run is huge.
• Patience is required to capture this outperformance from stocks.
• Diversification can help, but it’s not guaranteed.