S&P 500 return 2025: how the index performed, and what the number does and doesn't establish

The S&P 500 returned 17.9% in 2025, its seventh-best year since 2010, according to RIABiz, which cited multiple data sets. That figure is a calendar-year return for the index itself, not a prediction about any future year. It also came with a comparison attached: the average hedge fund returned 12.6% in 2025, so a plain index fund beat the professionally managed field by roughly 5.3 percentage points. That gap is the story worth measuring. Hedge funds had what RIABiz called their best year since 2009, and they still trailed the index. This article walks through what the 2025 number establishes, how it compares with recent history, and which parts of the usual year-in-review story the available data does not cover. What does the 2025 return actually measure? The 17.9% figure is the S&P 500's calendar-year return for 2025, as compiled by RIABiz from multiple data sets.

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