Pure Benchmarks · Free calculator
What If I Had Stayed Invested? Calculator
Updated
Short answer
Someone who sold $10,000 of the S&P 500 on March 12, 2020 and bought back on August 18, 2020 paid 37% more to get back in. By October 30, 2026 the money that stayed invested was worth about $30,560; the money that sold and bought back was worth about $22,360, roughly $8,200 less. Enter your own dates below to run the same check on real daily index closes.
What if you had stayed in the S&P 500?
Loading S&P 500 history…
Uses daily S&P 500 index closes. Dividends are left out of both paths and cash earns nothing, so the real gap for a fund that pays dividends is usually a little larger.
Selling during a drop feels like protection, and the cost only shows up later, when the market recovers without you. This calculator measures it on real data: enter how much you sold, the day you sold and the day you bought back, and it compares that path with having held the S&P 500 the whole time. It uses daily index closes from January 2018 to the latest trading day and runs in your browser. It describes the past and does not predict what any market will do next.
Link your portfolio and see, in dollars, what your own holdings would have done if you had held through past crashes instead of selling. Every sale and re-entry after that is scored against staying invested.
See Your Free Benchmark ReportHow the comparison works
The held path keeps the amount in the S&P 500 from the sale date to today. The sold path turns it into cash on the sale date and, if you entered a buy-back date, reinvests the cash at that day’s close. Both paths end on the latest close, so the gap is the dollar effect of the round trip.
Why buying back is the hard part
The rebound usually starts while the news is still bad. In 2020 the S&P 500 bottomed on March 23 and regained its February high by August 18. An investor waiting for things to feel safe often buys back far above the price they sold at, which locks in a smaller number of shares for every year that follows.
What the calculator leaves out
Index closes do not include dividends, and the cash in the sold path earns no interest. Taxes on the sale, trading costs and the exact funds you held are also left out. The result is a clean measure of the timing decision itself rather than a full account statement.
Checking your own trades
Real portfolios rarely sell everything on one day. Pure Benchmarks, our own product, scores every sale and purchase in a connected account against the portfolio you would have had without it, using the holdings you actually owned, and shows the dollar result of each decision.
Link your portfolio and see, in dollars, what your own holdings would have done if you had held through past crashes instead of selling. Every sale and re-entry after that is scored against staying invested.
See Your Free Benchmark ReportFrequently asked questions
What would my money be worth if I had not sold in 2020?
Enter the amount and your sale date in the calculator. As an example, $10,000 sold on March 12, 2020 would have been worth about $30,560 on October 30, 2026 if held, using S&P 500 closes without dividends.
Does the calculator include dividends?
No. It uses index closes for both paths, so dividends are left out of each. Including them would usually make holding look slightly better, because the sold path misses dividends while in cash.
What if I never bought back?
Tick the box for not having bought back. The sold path then stays in cash at the amount you sold, and the result shows the full gap to having held.
Is this a recommendation to stay invested?
No. It shows what happened in the past for the dates you enter. Whether to hold or sell depends on your own plan, and this page is information, not a recommendation about any holding.
Keep exploring
- What Selling in a Market Drop Has Cost Since 2018
- What If You Had Not Sold During the Market Crash?
- What Happens If I Sell and Miss the Market Recovery?
- I Sold and Missed the Rally. When Should I Get Back In?
- Cash Drag Calculator
- Free Investing Calculators
- What Would My Old Portfolio Be Worth If I Had Kept It?
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This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.