What was the percenatge return on the S&P 500 index for each of the past five years?

Hi largold2!
You can find the monthly closing value of the S&P 500 index at the following link:

Yahoo! Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EGSPC&a=09&b=20&c=1999&d=02&e=7&f=2005&g=m

We get from here the closing prices of December of each year:

Dec-99 = 1469.25
Dec-00 = 1320.28
Dec-01 = 1148.08
Dec-02 = 879.82
Dec-03 = 1111.92
Dec-04 = 1211.92

So the returns are:

2000 : -9.7%
2001 : -13.04%
2002 : -23.36%
2003 : +26.38%
2004 : +8.99%


Google search terms
s&p 500 historical prices
://www.google.com.ar/search?hl=es&q=s%26p+500+historical+prices&meta=


I hope this helps!
Best wishes,
elmarto

Be careful... depending on what you need the information for, you may
want the TOTAL RETURN for the S&P 500 rather than the PRICE RETURN.
Especially if you are comparing a managed portfolio against the S&P,
you want to include dividend returns.

Year	Close Price	Price Chg	Price % Chg	TotRet% Chg	Div
2004	1211.92		100.00		8.99%		10.88%		1.89%
2003	1111.92		232.10		26.38%		28.69%		2.30%
2002	879.82		-268.26		-23.37%		-22.10%		1.27%
2001	1148.08		-172.20		-13.04%		-11.89%		1.15%
2000	1320.28		-148.97		-10.14%		-9.10%		1.04%

You can download a spreadsheet from S&P with this info here:
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/xls/index/MONTHLY.xls

TOTAL RETURN includes dividends paid on S&P stocks. The FAQ says this
about total return:

11. How are total returns calculated?
Total returns are calculated by adding the dividend income and price
appreciation for a given time period. Total returns for the S&P
Indices are calculated similarly; an indexed dividend return is added
to the Index price change for a given time period.

Nice catch Financeeco!  I found the same data you did, but couldn't
find out why it varied from Elmarto's data so I didn't bring it up. 
I'll keep the dividends in mind next time :)