What R10,000 Invested in 2000 Is Worth Today: JSE, S&P 500, Gold and Cash in Rand

Key findings

• Gold was the best performer: R10,000 became about R387,239, 38.7 times the original amount, or 14.6% a year in rand.
• The S&P 500 in rand turned R10,000 into about R138,874 and the JSE All Share into about R127,013, on prices alone.
• The rand fell from about R6.15 to R16.40 to the dollar, which multiplied every rand-measured return on an offshore asset by 2.67.
• South African prices rose about 4.1 times, so it takes about R41,012 today to buy what R10,000 bought at the end of 1999.
• R10,000 kept as rand cash with no interest buys only what R2,438 bought in 1999; even US dollars held in cash lost purchasing power, ending at about R6,502 in 1999 rand.

How these figures work

Each investment starts at R10,000 at the end of 1999 and is valued on 30 September 2026. For the JSE the value follows the All Share index; for the S&P 500 and gold it follows the dollar price, converted to rand at the exchange rate on each date. US dollar cash shows the effect of the exchange rate alone, and rand cash shows what happens to money that earns nothing.

Real values divide each result by the rise in South African prices, using the inflation history on this site. The rand exchange rate history shows the path the rand took between the two dates, which mattered as much as the assets themselves.

A worked example

The S&P 500 rose from 1,469.25 to 7,651.54, a multiple of 5.21 in dollars. Over the same period the rand weakened from R6.15 to R16.40 to the dollar, a multiple of 2.67. In rand the investment therefore grew 5.21 × 2.67 = 13.9 times, turning R10,000 into about R138,874.

After South African inflation of about 4.1 times, that is worth about R33,862 in end-1999 money, a real return of 4.7% a year. The inflation calculator runs the same adjustment on any amount.

Notes on reading these figures

• Price indices exclude dividends. Total-return versions of both share indices would show substantially higher values.
• Cash earning interest in a bank or money market fund would have done far better than the no-interest rand cash shown, which is included to show the effect of inflation alone.
• Costs, taxes and exchange control are ignored; investing offshore in 1999 also required exchange control approval that individuals did not generally have.

The compound growth calculator and the CAGR calculator work out growth on your own figures, and how to invest in gold in South Africa and how to invest in ETFs cover the practical routes.