Then vs now · 21 Sep 2026
If you'd invested
Why this matters. This page shows what a past amount would have become in cash, gold, shares or a super option, up to the date in the file. It is a saved series, not a live price, and not a forecast.
A year and a dollar amount. Cash, gold, Australian shares, S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and HESTA Balanced Growth, in Australian dollars, through to today.
Worth today
Bank bills
$65,18921 Sep 2026
2.3% p.a.
XAU AUD
$211,40521 Sep 2026
13.1% p.a.
All Ords / VAS
$125,98621 Sep 2026
8.2% p.a.
IVV
$257,90621 Sep 2026
15.0% p.a.
NDQ
$420,73821 Sep 2026
19.9% p.a.
HESTA
$123,86521 Sep 2026
8.0% p.a.
Next: Compare a mix of shares — Forward mix with monthly additions.
What doctors often miss
The lines stop at the frozen date on the chart. They are past movements in the saved series, not a forecast.
Included / Not included
Included
- Frozen 1 January levels for cash, gold, Australian shares, S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and HESTA, plus a weekly stub ↗ · checked with the series on the page
Not included
- A live price on the day you open the page
- Your tax, franking, or the CGT discount
- Contributions after the first amount, unless the tool has that field
- Inflation-adjusted spending power, unless a line says so
- Brokerage and insurance
Assumptions you can edit are the inputs on this page. This is a model, not a prediction, a tax assessment, or a recommendation.
A rough figure — not advice. Terms
What prices we use
Not live prices. There is no quote feed and visitors never hit an API. Closed years are frozen. The open year is a weekly snapshot (last: 21 Sep 2026). Graph points are the value on 1 January of each year, plus “today”.
- Closed years never move. Only the 2026 stub is rewritten weekly when we ship — still a file, still not a live quote.
- Shares and gold: 1 January level → next 1 January level (price + dividends, then FX into AUD).
- Cash: the bank-bill return earned during that calendar year, not the RBA cash rate on 1 January held all year.
- Nasdaq-100 launched 31 January 1985. Before that the line is blank. The same dollar amount starts on launch — it is not grown in cash first. 1985 is a stub from 31 Jan, not a full 1 January year.
- HESTA Core Pool from 1 Aug 1987; line from 1988. FY ending 30 June, net of fees and earnings tax.
- We refresh the file when the site ships.
| Sleeve | Series | From | Source | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | Bank bills | 1960 | RBA / AusBond bank-bill calendar-year return, baked. | Bloomberg AusBond Bank Bill / RBA cash-rate proxy. Not a term deposit quote. |
| Gold | XAU AUD | 1960 | LBMA USD/oz × year-end AUDUSD (RBA/FRED). ABC Bullion for recent AUD spot. | Spot gold in Australian dollars. No yield. ABC Bullion / LBMA × AUDUSD. |
| VAS / ASX 200 | All Ords / VAS | 1960 | MLC All Ords accumulation 1960–99; S&P/ASX 200 TR thereafter. Not the VAS live ASX quote. | 1960–1999 All Ordinaries accumulation (MLC/ASX). 2000+ S&P/ASX 200 TR. VAS listed May 2009, then −0.07% MER. |
| S&P 500 | IVV | 1960 | S&P 500 total return (Slickcharts / S&P) × year-end AUDUSD. YCharts AUD TR from 2019. | S&P 500 total return, unhedged in AUD. IVV listed 2007 — earlier years are the index (US IVV from 2000, S&P itself from 1960), then −0.04% MER. |
| Nasdaq-100 | NDQ | 1985 | Nasdaq-100 USD total return × year-end AUDUSD. Not the NDQ live ASX quote. | Nasdaq-100 launched 31 Jan 1985. 1985 is from launch (not a full 1 Jan year), unhedged in AUD. NDQ listed May 2015, then −0.48% MER. |
| HESTA Balanced Growth | HESTA | 1988 | HESTA MySuper dashboard FY2016–26. Earlier years reconstructed to 8.6% p.a. since inception. | Core Pool from 1 Aug 1987; line from 1988. FY ending 30 June, net of investment fees and earnings tax. FY2016–26 from HESTA’s MySuper dashboard; earlier years reconstructed to the published 8.6% p.a. since inception. Super wrapper, not brokerage. |
Also
Advertisement — labelled, never inside the number.