Certainly not forever. Let's take a closer look. Standard and Poor's is an independent financial analysis firm. The number of shares of a particular company's stock in the index is directly proportional to its market value. Because these companies are the largest companies in the index, they therefore have the largest influence on the value of the index.
Index funds are mutual funds that are made up of the stocks that make up a particular market index.
According to Lipper Analytical Services, by the year 2000 over 50 percent of all money invested in mutual funds will be in stock market mutual funds that emulate market indexes. A few years ago, the Vanguard Index 500 was the only game in town. There are index funds that emulate the performance of dozens of other indexes. However, the average annual total return since 1941 has been approximately 10 to 11 percent. The longer that you invest regularly, the higher the likelihood that the result will be closer to the ten percent level.