CAC 40 vs CAC 40 GR
The same basket of forty French companies, two different calculations: the CAC 40 counts only share prices, while the CAC 40 GR adds dividends, reinvested as they are paid. The gap between the two curves is therefore not a difference in performance — it is the share of the return that the better-known index leaves out.
Over the period both series share, CAC 40 GR comes out ahead at +7.3% a year.
| Asset | Total return | Annualised | Volatility | Largest drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAC 40 | +324.8% | +4.0% a year | 18.8% | −62.4% (March 2009) |
| CAC 40 GR | ×13.3 | +7.3% a year | 18.7% | −59.4% (April 2003) |
Figures calculated on 26/10/2026 from monthly closing prices. Past performance is no guide to future performance.
A price index and a gross-return index
The CAC 40 quoted in the press and on the evening news is a price index: it measures only the movement of share prices. When a company pays a dividend, its share price falls mechanically by the amount paid, and the index falls with it — even though the shareholder has received the money.
The CAC 40 GR — for gross return — redoes the calculation assuming each dividend is immediately reinvested in the index. It answers a different question: what a holding in those forty companies would have returned, dividends included. That is the version to use when comparing the French market with a savings account, with property, or with a foreign total-return index.
Why the gap widens over time
A reinvested dividend earns a return of its own, which in turn earns a return. The gap between the two curves therefore does not grow steadily but accelerates, and over several decades it becomes very large — far larger than the French market’s annual yield taken in isolation would suggest.
This is why comparing the bare CAC 40 with an American total-return index gets the answer badly wrong: dividends are stripped from one side only. Setting the CAC 40 against its own GR version measures exactly what such a comparison would lose along the way.
Frequently asked questions
Which version should you look at?
The GR version to measure what an investment returned; the price index to follow market news, since that is the one everyone quotes.
What about an NR index, then?
A net-return index reinvests dividends after withholding tax. It sits between the two, and it is usually the benchmark ETFs track.