They're part of total return?
VTSAX had adjusted close price of 55.94 on 4-11-17 and 61.36 on 3-17-20. So we need a 9.7% drop today to match the price on 4-11-17 if I'm doing that right. S&P down 9.8% as I type, so yeah, top was in.
Don't forget to adjust for inflation innit
Nominal makes more sense for this comparison.
No it doesn't.
Strong argument. But, yes it does.
What's there to adjust? The buying power might be less but this question regards the literal number.
OK here's my reasoning. The question is whether a S&P500 investor is better or worse off than you were when Thorstach made his mighty prognostication? To know that, you have to account for dividends and inflation.
I thought the question was simply is it lower/higher today than it was at the beginning of the thread.
Dividends should be factored in because they are part of the value of stock. Inflation on the other hand affects all assets. If we were benchmarking against some other investment* we wouldn't adjust stocks for inflation while using nominal value of the benchmark asset. If we adjusted stock value for inflation we would need to adjust benchmark value for inflation as well for a fair comparison.
Those adjustments would negate so why bother?
*Several posters asked where thorstache would move funds but I don't believe the answer was given.