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This is Motleyful Answers. I'm Alison Southwick and I'm joined as always by Robert Brokamp,

personal finance expert here at the Motleyful. Hello, Bro.

Hello, Alison. This week's episode, Bro is going to interview Larry Swedro. He's the author of Your Complete Guide to a Successful and Secure Retirement. And I'm going to take us shopping at CES. Ooh, exciting. All that and more on this week's episode of Motleyful Answers.

So, bro, what's up?

Well, I got three things for you, Allison.

Number one, the returns over the past 20 years.

Now, most of us have heard, especially if you listen to this show, that over the long term,

U.S. large-cap stocks have returned 10% a year.

That number usually comes from Ibbets and associates beginning in 1926. However, a recent Barron's article looked at the returns over the past 20 years.

You want to take a guess with the S&P 500 returned over the past 20 years? No, I hate guessing at things like this because I just look like a big old idiot.

All right, well, I'll tell you, 5.5%.

That's disappointing.

It is disappointing.

Because obviously because of the two bare markets we had, dot com, then the Great Recession.

So half of the historical average, right?

And it really is half the historical average, because if you looked at what the stock market returned when you looked at 1999, I remember this, because

that's when I started writing for the Motley Fool, at that point, U.S. Large Casas had returned

11% a year. So if you were doing your retirement plan, right, you're like, oh, well, stocks

return 11% a year. So throw it all the numbers in there, calculate,

...