Last year was one for the books in the stock market. The S&P 500 returned more than 25%, including dividends. That's an excellent gain and marks a strong recovery after 2022's near 20% decline.

But with such a strong year in the books, can investors expect the stock market to go higher in 2024? Let's look at history and see what happened in similar situations.

For all of the historical annual returns, I'll utilize the total return metric, which includes the effects of dividends. While some investors choose to take their dividends in cash and not reinvest them, the market's long-term trend is up, making these withdrawals a mistake (unless you need the dividend income to fund retirement).

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Source Fool.com