Ten years off the financial crisis bottom, the stock market scored one of its best decades in nearly 140 years.

According to Goldman Sachs, the 10-year trailing annual return for of 15 percent ranks in the 94th percentile of all 10-year periods going all the way back to 1880. The typical 10-year trailing return since 1880 is 9 percent.

(Note the S&P 500 goes back to the 1920s so Goldman likely used a proxy for equity returns back to the 19th century.)

"One of the unique parts about the decade-long bull market is that it's been driven by a couple different things in its life," said Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research. "In the beginning it was the Fed ... the round after round of QE. That's what really got us going."

"Then that transitioned to something more traditionally sustainable, which was an economic resurgence. We saw that in the middle of the decade. And then tax cuts created a earnings-based bull market," he added.