South Africa has the best-performing stock market in the world
The 2026 Global Investment Returns Yearbook revealed that South Africa’s stock exchange outperformed all other countries over the last 125 years.
The Global Investment Returns Yearbook is authored by Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, and Mike Staunton, in partnership with UBS and London Business School.
It tracks data dating back to 1900 and offers a strong foundation for understanding the long-term evolution of global financial markets.
The 2026 Global Investment Returns Yearbook provides 126 years of data across 35 different markets and five composite indices.
The authors analysed the long-term performance of equities, bonds, bills, currencies and gold since 1900.
It is widely regarded as the definitive guide to historical investment returns and places today’s market debates in historical context.
Across all countries with continuous records since 1900, equities have outperformed bonds, bills, and inflation.
Global equity markets have been transformed over time, with the United States rising to dominate world equity capitalisation.
This change reflects strong equity returns and sustained issuance, even as its share of global GDP has declined.
Developed markets have delivered higher returns over the full 125-year horizon, while emerging markets have outperformed in more recent decades.
The yearbook also showed that inflation has materially eroded purchasing power over time, reinforcing the need to focus on real, inflation-adjusted returns.
Gold has preserved purchasing power over the very long run but has been an inconsistent short-term inflation hedge.
South Africa has the best-performing stock market in the world since 1900
The 2026 Global Investment Returns Yearbook showed that South Africa was the best-performing stock market in the world since 1900 in terms of annualised real returns.
South Africa outperformed the United States and Australia, its closest competitors, with an annualised real return of approximately 7%.
South Africa’s stock market, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), was established by Benjamin Wollan on 8 November 1887.
His goal was to provide a platform for gold mining companies to raise capital to make the most of South Africa’s first gold rush.
It is, therefore, unsurprising that the commodity and mining sectors initially drove South Africa’s strong performance.
During the first half of the 20th century, gold and diamond mining provided a strong foundation for the stock market.
In recent decades, the JSE diversified into finance, telecommunications, and media, helping it maintain high returns despite significant political and social turbulence.
Today, only half of the top 10 companies on the JSE are mining-related. The others include BAT, AB Inbev, Richemont, Prosus, and Naspers.
The next ten are even more diversified, with the financial giants dominating. They include Standard Bank, Capitec, Firstrand, MTN, Vodacom, Absa, and Sanlam.
The authors of the report pointed to South Africa as an example of optimism, providing better returns than pessimism.
The country faced numerous hardships, including wars, the great depression, political turmoil, and policy uncertainty.
However, despite these challenges, investors who remained committed to equities over the very long term were handsomely rewarded.
The chart below shows the highest returns among countries with uninterrupted stock market histories since 1900.
It should be noted that many countries that might have rivalled South Africa’s returns experienced market breaks.
These market breaks were periods where the stock market was closed, nationalised, or where investors lost 100% of their capital due to war or revolution.
Annualised real returns of the top-performing countries
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