Much to ASX investors' chagrin, investing in the flagship American index, the S&P 500 Index (SP: .INX), over the past few years has been far more lucrative than holding cash in our local markets. Yep, the ASX-listed iShares S&P 500 ETF (AS:X IVV) has beaten the pants off any Australian index fund over almost any timeframe this decade.
The ASX's largest and most influential stocks, even Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), just haven't been able to keep pace with the likes of NVIDIA, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon and the rest of the tech titans that now dominate the American markets.
Additionally, the Australian dollar has fallen from around 77 US cents at the start of 2021 to roughly 62 US cents today. This has provided a massive boost to the returns of American assets priced in Australian dollars. IVV units in this case.
Today, we're going to see this in action by looking at how much $1,000 invested in the iShares S&P 500 ETF at the start of 2021 would be worth today.
How much has an ASX investor made from IVV units since 2021?
Back at the start of the 2021 calendar year, the iShares S&P 500 ETF was priced at $32.36 per unit (adjusted for the 2022 stock split). Today, those same units are worth $64.29 (at the time of writing).
If we had invested $1,000 in IVV units at the start of 2021, we would have gotten a hypothetical investor 31 units (we'll round up to $1,003). At the last IVV unit price, those 31 units would have a value of $1,992.99. That's a total return of 98.67%, or approximately 18.4% per annum.
But wait, there's more.
Although not as well known for its dividend prowess as the Australian share market, US stocks still pay out meaningful dividends. We can see this in the iShares S&P 500 ETF, which typically pays out a dividend distribution every quarter.
Since the beginning of 2021, IVV units have paid out 17 dividend distributions – four each over 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, as well as one in 2025 so far.
These 17 payments add up to a total of $2.493 per unit (again, split-adjusted).
For our investor who bought those 31 units, this means they can add an additional $77.28 in dividend income to their capital, resulting in a final investment worth $2,070.27.
As such, we can conclude that the S&P 500 ETF has doubled an investor's money between the start of 2021 and today – not a bad return for four and a bit years.
