COMMENT
9% For 53 Years

My inbox has only just recovered from My Son The Millionaire.

The e-mails focused on one subject. No, not about me contributing just the minimum £250 to my son's a child trust fund. No, not about the restrictions of stakeholder pensions. And no, nothing to do with the article referring to women as 'birds'.

Instead, pretty much every response I received concerned my projected 9% annual growth rate for shares. 'Pure fantasy', as one Fool remarked.

The feedback wasn't surprising. With the FTSE 100 index today trading around the 4,800 mark, it remains at a level first witnessed eight years ago. Talk of any long-term growth is likely to raise the eyebrows of most late-Nineties investors.

But hold on: the Millionaire article concerned my young son and investing for his retirement... over the next 53 years!

Okay, I'll own up to not having an accurate crystal ball. I can't guarantee my son (or me, for that matter) will make 9% a year on shares until 2058. But what I can do is look back at history. Stock market history since 1869 to be exact, courtesy of Credit Suisse First Boston.

Take any 53-year period since 1869 and it'll contain a rich mix of wars, technical revolutions, deep recessions, market crashes, valuation paradigms, industrial strikes, oil shocks, commodity spikes, economic booms and no end of domestic and international political upheavals. I'm sure the next 53 years will be just as volatile and unpredictable, too.

Anyway, the CSFB study reveals the worst 53-year period for the UK stock market was between 1879 and 1931, when investors earned 5.8% per annum. The best period was between 1947 and 1999, when the annual return was 13.6%. And the average of every 53-year period since CSFB's records began? Bang on 9%.

So my advice is simple: don't make the mistake of putting undue emphasis on relatively recent history. If your investing time horizon spans decades, consider what has happened over similar timescales in the past. Despite the last bear market, the record books do show shares winning out over the very long haul. At 9% a year, my son could become a millionaire yet.

More: Track Your Way To Greater Wealth | Index Trackers Have Beaten The Bear Market | This Time It's Different

Maynard owns iShares FTSE 100, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the FTSE 100, and contributes regularly to a index tracker.