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:

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

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  2. or four mattresses, with one accidentally getting thrown out

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

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

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