The dividend part nobody quotes
SPY is discussed almost entirely in terms of price. Its yield is low enough that most summaries round it away — and then quote a ten-year return that quietly includes it anyway. The summary above separates the two, so you can see what share of the gain actually came from dividends rather than from the index rising.
It is a smaller share than a dividend fund's, and it is still not nothing. Reinvested over a decade, a sub-one-and-a-half percent yield compounds into a real slice of the ending balance. That is the case for reinvesting even when income is not why you bought the fund.
Why this drawdown looks different
The maximum drawdown here is measured on daily closes, so it is the worst peak-to-trough you actually sat through. Month-end data smooths away the sharpest days and reports a gentler number — which is the version most comparison sites publish.
You will also see much larger figures quoted elsewhere, sometimes over 50%. Those are since-inception: SPY dates to 1993 and has been through two crashes that fall outside a ten-year window. Neither figure is wrong. They answer different questions, and the window is doing most of the work in the answer.
What SPY is, mechanically
It tracks the S&P 500 — the largest US companies weighted by market capitalization — and charges 0.09% a year. Market-cap weighting means the fund is more concentrated than “500 companies” suggests: the largest handful carry a disproportionate share, so SPY's recent history has leaned heavily on the same names that drive QQQ.
Sources
Index and expense ratio from State Street's SPY documentation. Prices and dividend history from Financial Modeling Prep's end-of-day feed.