I am the proud owner of a Chrysler Crossfire. Okay, proud right now because the car has always been incredibly fun to drive; however, we (my car and I) tend to have a love/hate relationship. As soon as I've gone a couple of months without a major incident (engine replacement, tire issue, etc.), something tends to go awry and I find myself doling out upwards of a grand to get the car back on the road...but that's a topic for another blog posting.
The market's stellar performance got me thinking today - what has been a better performer over the past several years - my car or the S&P 500 Index? So, using the handy dandy "XIRR" function in Excel, I took the Kelly Blue Book Value of my 2004 Chrysler Crossfire as of today and calculated the annual return on the car since its purchase in mid-August 2004. The result - an average annual return of -17.2% - makes me think twice about ever buying a new car again (although I didn't buy it new, I bought it used with 5k miles on it for about $8k under the sticker price, so things could be worse).
Looking at the S&P 500 Index annual returns over the same period shows the market has returned an average of -4.0% over the same period using closes on the S&P 500 Index from August 16th, 2004 and today. Not quite as dismal as I initially thought but still pretty lackluster. Which makes me wish I was a qualified investor and could invest alongside some of these venture capital and private equity funds I spend time with at work...
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