What if?

  1. The question

    What if I invested $500 every week?

    What $500 weekly into the S&P 500 would have been worth since 2015 — contributions, ending value, and the same habit with SteadyGrow sizing.

  2. Assumptions

    What this page actually assumes

    • $500 every week into the S&P 500.
    • Start at the first Friday in the selected year (default 2015).
    • Never sold: cash in, units held to the last bar.
    • Blind DCA is a fixed $500. SteadyGrow uses the same long-run budget with week-to-week sizing from the model.

  3. Historical data

    2020-01-03 → 2026-08-28

    Weekly S&P 500 path from 2015 through the latest published Friday. Change the year chips to see a shorter live window — still the same series, not a made-up return.

    Series: S&P 500. Same contribution calendar. No data before 2015.

  4. Interactive simulation

    Change the habit, stay on the real curve

    Amount
    Start year

    $500/week · S&P 500

    2020-01-03 → 2026-08-28 · $500/week · S&P 500

    Contributed$174,000
    Held to the last date$310,672
    Return+78.5%
    SteadyGrow value$403,592
    vs blind DCA+$92,920
    S&P 5002020-01-03 → 2026-08-28 · $500/week
     +$92,920 vs blind (+29.9%)Ended +29.9%
    Blind DCASteadyGrow
    $0$106k$211k$317k$422k2020-012021-042022-092023-122025-052026-08

  5. Results

    What the numbers say

    Contributions are just weeks × $500. Ending value is that cash marked to the index. The interesting gap is usually versus lumping the same total in on day one, or versus sizing the weeks instead of buying blind.

  6. What changes if…

    Nearby questions

    What if the weekly amount wasn't always the same?

    These pages fix the contribution. SteadyGrow keeps the same long-term budget and sizes weeks from valuation — more when markets are cheap, less when they're stretched.

    Get weekly signals — $29/quarterLive $500/wk experiment →