Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Lost Decade

BusinessWeek reports:

There are still six months left in this decade, but it is not too soon to start drafting its obituary. Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s, is already looking at the decade’s stock market legacy. It’s ugly. The S&P 500 is down 39.22% from Dec. 31, 1999 through Monday’s close.

“We need a 63.79% advance just to break-even for the decade,” Silverblatt says. That’s not going to happen by Dec. 31. “The last negative decade was the 1930s, -41.77%,” according to Silverblatt. Annualized, stocks lost 5.12% so far this decade; in the 1930s decade of the Great Depression they lost 5.26%.

Things actually aren't that bad, the S&P 500 is down "only" 28% through Monday for the decade (for some reason Business Week doesn't include dividends, which makes no sense),

Hey, look at the positive... including dividends, we only need a 39% return to break-even.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, you would have done better by putting your money in a mattress.

Jake said...

or four mattresses, with one accidentally getting thrown out

Jack Croww said...

There are 18 months left in the decade. What crack is BW smoking?

Jake said...

Jan 2000 - December 2009 is the decade, just as the 90's were Jan 1990 - Dec 1999... convince me otherwise

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