Wait, Trump Cannot Even Beat an S&P 500 Index Fund? Now that is Pretty Sad

I was told (by Trump) that he is a great business success. However if he just bought and held he would have been even richer.

In 1976, Trump told the New York Times that he was worth $200 million. Had he put that money in an ordinary fund based on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, the kind that many people use to save money for retirement, he'd have $12 billion today. That is more than the $10 billion he has claimed he is worth. Bloomberg estimates his wealth at $2.9 billion.

So if he just took that 200 million and invested in an S&P 500 Index fund he would have been up an extra $2 billion. If his net worth is actually $2.9 billion that is a fairly poor rate of return on investing $200 million over 40 years. I guess going bankrupt a number of times does that. In any case I can understand why he is so thin skinned when it comes to his net worth. He couldn't even beat a buy-and-hold strategy.