Bad decade to be a stock
AS THE DECADE ENDS, U.S. STOCK MARKETS LOWER THAN WHERE THEY STARTED
| S&P 500 | |
| Date | Adj Close |
| 12/31/2009 | 1,115 |
| 12/31/1999 | 1,469 |
| DOW JONES | |
| Date | Adj Close |
| 12/31/2009 | 10,428 |
| 12/31/1999 | 11,497 |
| NASDAQ | |
| Date | Adj Close |
| 12/31/2009 | 2,269 |
| 12/31/1999 | 4,069 |
One can see from the above that the S&P 500 index is down 23% over the decade, the Dow is down 8% and the NASDAQ is down 43%! If we compute CAGRs (Compound Annual “Growth” Rates), we could say the S&P lost about 3% per year, the Dow lost about 1% per year, and the NASDAQ lost about 6% per year. Hooray.
However, it’s likely you didn’t lose as much as these indices did. You probably have money in bonds or bank accounts that didn’t go down. If you held international (sorry, popular non-US) stocks, you probably came out ahead. Also note that looking at just a single window like this gives a biased view (so called end-point bias). If you want to search hard for other reasons to feel good, see this comment on why it wasn’t a lost decade.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendavidjohnson/4141860344/
