Investing for the Long Term

The FTSE 100 launched in January 1984 at 1,000 points. By May 2026 it stands at 10,443 — roughly a tenfold rise — despite more than eleven significant market disruptions along the way, from Black Monday in 1987 to the inflation surge of 2022. Every single one of those crashes has been followed by a recovery. The investors who stayed in captured those recoveries. The ones who sold during the falls did not. That is the central evidence this guide is built on.

The guide walks through forty years of UK and global market history in plain English: the six biggest crises since 1984 and how long each took to recover, the maths of compound growth (a £10,000 investment at 6% grows by £7,908 in its first decade but by £25,364 in its third), the often-overlooked role of reinvested dividends, and the slow damage inflation does to cash held for the long term. A worked example shows how £300 invested monthly for thirty years grows to around £301,354 — with £193,354 of that coming from compounding alone. A second illustration shows how the same £10,000 invested at 25 produces nearly six times more by age 65 than the same sum invested at 55. There is also a dedicated section for creative professionals with irregular income.

It is written to help UK investors think clearly about long-term risk and reward, not to sell a product. Read it in about fifteen minutes.