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.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 23, 2009 at 2:14 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  2. JakeJune 23, 2009 at 4:41 PM

    or four mattresses, with one accidentally getting thrown out

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jack CrowwJune 23, 2009 at 5:11 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  4. JakeJune 23, 2009 at 7:36 PM

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

    ReplyDelete