Each year, Callan Associates publishes an updated “periodic table” that displays the performance of nine major asset classes over the past two decades. The latest version, representing data from 2006 to 2025, can be accessed on their website, Callan.com. The table ranks asset classes from best to worst performance, making it easy to track the fluctuations in relative performance by focusing on a specific asset class (marked by color).
The Callan Periodic Table of Investment Returns underscores the importance of diversification among asset classes (such as stocks versus bonds), market capitalizations (large versus small), and geographic markets (U.S. versus international). This table illustrates the volatility that exists across all capital markets, with rankings changing annually. It also emphasizes the distinction between absolute and relative performance; returns for the top-performing asset class have varied greatly over the last 20 years.
