Holding Cash vs Investing

When you choose not to invest your money, you could be missing out on significant returns over time. Give your money a chance to grow by putting it to work.

Use the tool below to compare historical returns of market benchmarks to not investing at all and see how $10,000 would've performed over time.

Investing vs. staying out of the market

Select market benchmarks
help Market benchmarks are an unmanaged group of bonds or stocks whose overall performance is used as a standard to measure investment performance.

Select a benchmark
$10,000
Investment time frame
How much you would have earned investing*
as of XX/XX/XXXX

*How much more you would've earned if you'd invested in these market benchmarks vs. not investing at all.

The bottom line

Investing in the market can give you greater growth potential over time. You can help offset market risk through asset allocation. Use our asset allocation tool to find a portfolio that best fits you.

Select market benchmarks
help Market benchmarks are an unmanaged group of bonds or stocks whose overall performance is used as a standard to measure investment performance.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. The performance of an index is not an exact representation of any particular investment, as you cannot invest directly in an index.

Related resources

Get to know our fees

See what it costs to have an account and trade investments at Vanguard.

Get professional advice

We offer expert help at the low cost we're known for.

Investing on your own

Get key information on how you can start a successful DIY investing journey.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

Benchmark comparative indexes represent unmanaged or average returns on various financial assets, which can be compared with funds' total returns for the purpose of measuring relative performance.