One of the simplest and best ways to invest in the stock market is by investing in a low-fee S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) index fund. A fine example is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO). Even Warren Buffett has recommended it for most investors and has directed that most of the money he leaves his wife be put in such a fund.
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No one can know precisely how any stock investment will perform. But a look back can give us a rough idea. Here’s the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF‘s past performance:
Data source: Morningstar.com as of Oct. 6, 2026.
Those numbers are above average, though, and those outsize gains make me suspect that the coming years might feature below-average gains.
Here’s how a single $5,000 investment could grow at different rates over time. The 14-year numbers show what you might have by 2040:
Data source: Calculations via Investor.gov’s calculator. *Percentage is an annual rate, and the return uses a compounded growth rate.
While the calculations above are for a single $5,000 investment, the best way to maximize the value of any investment is to keep adding to it over time, remembering that your earliest invested dollars are your most powerful ones, as they have the most time in which to grow for you.
Understand, too, that the market could crash or correct this year or next. If it does, your best move is to be patient and wait for a recovery. There’s a silver lining, too: When the market pulls back, many great stocks go on sale, and it’s a good time to shop.
Should you buy stock in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF right now?
Before you buy stock in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $379,123!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,408,822!*