Courtesy of Doug Short.
Yesterday the S&P 500 closed with a year-to-date gain of 0.43%, and, in my daily update, I said I would "be surprised to see the index slip back into the red for 2011 close. Calendar year returns have a symbolic value that, barring a war or natural disaster, will probably motivate enough year-end buying to keep us in the green."
Well, I was wrong.
My preferred benchmark index closed the year with a loss of 0.003%. It was exactly 0.03 points from break even.
From an intermediate perspective, the index is 85.9% above the March 2009 closing low and 19.6% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.
For a bit of international flavor, here’s a chart series that includes an overlay of the S&P 500, the Dow Crash of 1929 and Great Depression, and the so-called L-shaped "recovery" of the Nikkei 225. I update these weekly.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
