December was a tough month for the stock market with the S&P 500 falling -2.38%. However, for the year, the S&P 500 returned just over 25%, nearly matching the prior year’s 26% return. And as the Wall Street Journal notes, this is the best two-year performance in a quarter century. If we extend the lookback period to three years and include the market selloff of 2022, investors still earned an average of nearly 9% per year.