Historical Returns for the S&P 400 Midcap Index (Updated Through 2008)

The S&P 400 Midcap Index is the most widely-followed of all U.S. Midcap stock market indices. Midcap stocks are generally defined as those of companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $10 billion. ("Market capitalization" refers to the value of outstanding shares of a particular stock.")

The S&P 400 Midcap Index was introduced in June 1991 by Standard & Poors to track the performance of U.S. mid cap stocks. Last year I posted a chart illustrating returns for the S&P 400 Midcap Index up through 2007. I updated the chart to reflect returns for 2008. The chart below illustrates the full year annual returns between 1992 and 2008.

As shown, the S&P 400 Midcap Index had its worst year annual returns in its existence, losing 36.23% in 2008. The terrible returns in 2008 dropped the annualized return from 1992 to 2008 down to 9.50%. This is a large decrease from the annualized return from 1992 to 2007 of 13.26%. The total return between 1992 and 2008 was 367.84%.

The chart below also shows five year annualized returns, starting with the fifth full calendar year of the existence of the S&P 400 Midcap Index (i.e., 1996). As shown, the highest annualized five-year return was 23.05% (between 1995 and 1999) and the lowest was -0.08% (between 2004 and 2008).

As I discussed last year, any long-term investor should seriously consider investing money in midcap stocks, such as those tracking the S&P 400 Midcap Index (e.g., the Midcap SPDR ETF (symbol: MDY) tracks the S&P 400 Midcap Index).


** I have posted an updated chart for the period between 1992-2014.