If you’re like me, you forget how quickly time passes. We’re rapidly approaching the halfway mark in 2026, and are now closer to 2030 than 2020. Over the past six years, the FTSE 100 has endured a global pandemic, a tariff meltdown, countless wars and more.

Yet if someone had parked £10k in the index at the beginning of 2020, what would it look like right now?

Show me the numbers!

At the start of January 2020, the index was trading at 7,604 points. Over the period, it traded to a low of 4,993 points during the pandemic crash in 2020, with a high of 10,910 points in February. A £10k investment would be worth £13,668 at the moment, given the gain of almost 37% from the start of 2020.

On the face of it, that seems like a good return. To be clear, no one should be unhappy with a profit! However, it isn’t as good as some might expect. Across the pond, the S&P 500 has delivered a 120% return over the same period.

At a stock-specific level, some constituents have vastly outperformed. Rolls-Royce is a good example, gaining 389% during the period in question. Of course, some stocks have lost significant value over the years as well. So things do need to be taken with a pinch of salt. But on the whole, I think an active investor with a carefully-selected stock portfolio could have outperformed the index in these years.

Where to from here?

The past is only half of the discussion. Where the index goes from here is equally worthy of conversation. Given the market’s ability to recover and shrug off the impact of the events in recent years, I believe that over a long enough timeline, the index can continue to deliver positive returns in the coming years.

However, I think an investor could target specific sectors that are poised to grow faster than average. For example, FinTech. IG Group (LSE:IGG) slots into this category nicely as a FTSE 100 growth stock.

It enables clients to trade and speculate on the price movements of shares, currencies, and commodities. In simple terms, when clients trade more, IG earns more through fees, spreads, and financing charges. It’s grown rapidly since 2020, in part due to higher market volatility. I can only see this continuing in the years ahead, so that’s one tick in the box for the outlook.

Add to this the fact that it’s pursuing an expansion-focused strategy. This includes acquisitions like Freetrade and moves into crypto. There’s a clear attempt to diversify beyond just a standard brokerage offer. However, there are risks. Regulation is the elephant in the room. IG’s core products are leveraged and high-risk, meaning regulators are constantly watching. Any tightening of rules around retail trading could hit growth.

Even with this, I still believe it has a strong shot of outperforming the broader index in the coming years and therefore could be considered by investors.