S&P500 Top 50 Trivia Question (w/Answer)
Ron Griess of The Chart Store asks:
The weekly low on the S&P was 32 weeks ago during the week ending March 6, 2009.
From that low (666.79) to yesterday’s high (1,096.56), the S&P was up 64.46%.
When is the last time the S&P had a 32 week ROR of that magnitude or higher?
Answers after the jump
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The top 50
Beginning Date Ending Date 32 week return
1 12/10/32 7/22/33 93.47%
2 12/3/32 7/15/33 93.10%
3 3/4/33 10/14/33 90.68%
4 2/25/33 10/7/33 87.68%
5 11/26/32 7/8/33 85.02%
6 2/11/33 9/23/33 78.99%
7 2/4/33 9/16/33 78.13%
8 6/4/32 1/14/33 77.91% The 1932 S&P bottom
9 3/11/33 10/21/33 77.08%
10 4/8/33 11/18/33 76.78%
11 4/1/33 11/11/33 74.44%
12 11/5/32 6/17/33 73.16%
13 2/18/33 9/30/33 72.76%
14 12/31/32 8/12/33 69.18%
15 4/2/38 11/12/38 65.79%
16 1/21/33 9/2/33 65.65%
17 4/15/33 11/25/33 64.49%
18 3/6/09 10/16/09 64.45% (2009)
19 6/11/32 1/21/33 63.76%
20 12/24/32 8/5/33 63.02%
21 1/28/33 9/9/33 62.94%
22 1/7/33 8/19/33 60.95%
23 11/12/32 6/24/33 60.76%
24 10/29/32 6/10/33 60.57%
25 1/14/33 8/26/33 60.45%
26 3/25/33 11/4/33 59.77%
27 11/19/32 7/1/33 59.63%
28 4/6/35 11/16/35 59.36%
29 12/17/32 7/29/33 58.39%
30 3/23/35 11/2/35 58.23%
31 3/30/35 11/9/35 57.16%
32 3/16/35 10/26/35 56.79%
33 4/22/33 12/2/33 56.43%
34 3/18/33 10/28/33 56.37%
35 7/2/32 2/11/33 56.16%
36 5/28/32 1/7/33 55.74%
37 4/13/35 11/23/35 55.44%
38 6/25/32 2/4/33 55.41%
39 10/15/32 5/27/33 53.55%
40 10/4/74 5/16/75 53.40% The 1974 S&P bottom
41 10/22/32 6/3/33 52.53%
42 8/13/82 3/25/83 52.52% The 1982 S&P bottom
43 7/9/32 2/18/33 51.38%
44 6/18/32 1/28/33 51.16%
45 8/20/82 4/1/83 51.03%
46 4/9/38 11/19/38 50.17%
47 4/20/35 11/30/35 50.06%
48 12/6/74 7/18/75 49.97%
49 6/1/35 1/11/36 48.08%
50 8/6/82 3/18/83 47.66%
October 19th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
What is the possibly relevance of this? It’s like saying that the temperature is 24% higher today then it was last Tuesday. Who cares? It’s pure nonsense.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
These numbers make the 1930’s look like a fun decade. Deja vu anyone?
October 19th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
It’s not that irrelevant. Comparing historical norms is an useful guide in many fields.
This tells us that these kind of returns occurred only in 30s. That’s a statistical input. Is it different this time ? Or history going to rhyme ? That’s for us to interpret.
But such kind of data increases suspicion to me as IdiotInvestor – Are people on Wall Street trying to grab my title for them ?
October 19th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
“It’s not that irrelevant. Comparing historical norms is an useful guide in many fields.”
Let’s add a few more variables to that data pull to compare historical norms. Let’s add 1) And when was the last time the market was even more substantially overvalued than even 1929 before the market collapse and subsequent rally? 2) And maybe when was the last time the government backstopped 12+ trillion dollars of assets in the economy? And 3) When was the last time the world was in the biggest financial bubble in history? And 4) After that rally, how many instances were there where 80% of economists believed the economy had turned the corner? And 5) When was total debt at nearly 400% of GDP?
Now re-pull the data. There are your historical norms. There are none. The only one that comes close is 1929. And it is a puny comparison.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Any comparisons with the 30’s has to be looked differently as there were no hedge funds, giant mutual funds, 401k’s, and internet investing trading by individuals (easy and cheap access to the markets). There were no futures contracts on financial products, no PPT, and Wall Street was not dominated by a few investment banks. That era had it’s unique attributes as well.
The comparison can be interesting but are they really meaningful?
October 19th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Not to mention, the SEC had not been created until AFTER the crash. These were markets with no real regulation. Which come to think of it, is similar to today. A Madoff fraudster could have operated as easily then as now.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think the most important missing variable is how far we fell prior to the bottom.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Wondering how you are getting S&P data for the 30’s… Pre-1957 it’s all made up isn’t it? Presumably that data showed a lot steeper recovery than the DOW. http://dshort.com/charts/bears/road-to-recovery-alt-alignment-large.gif.
I think the answer is there are no ROR in the S&P equal to or greater than the current one. There was no S&P in 1933.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Robert Shiller weighs in on market rally:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/356898/Current-Market-Boom-%22Can%27t-Be-Trusted%22-Robert-Shiller-Says?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,dia,spy,qqqq,XHB&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=
October 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
@DL: Understatement of the year, maybe decade. The term “irrational exuberance” is merely a kind word for “idiocy”.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
From a low of 666 to an increase of 66.6%… this calls for a little Iron Maiden!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_of_the_Beast_(album)
October 19th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Is it time to finally sell?
Leftback: On October 6th, 2009, I asked: “Leftback: Wondering what you’re doing with the shorts you put on into the close yesterday:”
LB said: “Holding them, idiot. Now check back with me in a week, please.”
Near two weeks have passed and the market is higher. Is it still a short?
October 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
And we’re just now getting back to fair value. We will overshoot that, obviously, and spike into the end of the year. Earnings and data are supporting this regardless of the refusal of many to accept that.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
the interesting thing is not the move in the “Indices”, it the ridiculous moves in a bevy of individual names. A lot of names are up 100% to 400% since their respective lows… List too long to put down here…
October 19th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@Singer: And a lot of those largely worthless companies that have run up to such ridiculous levels will be in BK or back down to penny stock status once the “extend and pretend” game ceases.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Singer/Mannwich: This is that argument I seem to hear alot now – stocks are up over 100%, etc. but they were down just as much or more. We’re just returning those individual stocks back to realistic levels that were brought down over 100%. Why is it everyone seems to forget that they fell so much but are shocked when they rise by the same amount?
October 19th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
@Wanger: Did you ever think that many of those companies that were priced for extinction were priced correctly? Granted, some may make it back from the dead and be fine, but a good many others will not in the end. They’re merely prolonging the inevitable.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Mannwich: Yes, some minority of them may have been priced near correction. However, the overwhelming majority were priced for doomsday. That didn’t happen so the stocks are getting back to their fair value. To say they’re prolonging the inevitable is an assumption that the economy will falter again. I don’t see how this is possible at this time.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
@Wanger: Some of these companies that have run up to ridiculous levels (not your Apple’s of the world) have not improved their financials not one iota. In fact, many of them have financials that have gotten worse while their stock prices have gone parabolic on nothing but increased liquidity floating around the market looking for somehwere to park for a while. I know of one off-hand that I will not mention. I am renting it right now though, although I have trimmed my position.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Back in the 30’s, the government and the financial industry pumped for all they were worth to boost the markets to the peak in ‘38, but they got scared as they saw the magnitude of the deficits they were building, and raised taxes to address that problem (possibly there were concerns about financing the coming war, I dunno), and the economy promptly collapsed.
Bernanke has vowed to “not make the same mistake”, and true enough, he and Geithner have dug a fiscal grave so huge that their counterparts from the 30’s would have had heart attacks and died upon contemplating such a horror.
The only thing that makes the current valuations sustainable is the zero interest rate environment. Any increase in rates will collapse the stock markets and shrink the economy accordingly. And it’s not as if the economy today is sized anything comparable to that of 2006.
So now the dynamic duo is riding the tiger, and face the same problem — how to transition back without being eaten?
And the other question being, how long can we run our economy on zero rates from the Fed, and what are the harmful consequences from doing so? (I think we can all understand what the consequences of not doing so are)
October 19th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
For those who may not know the history of the S&P Composite, here are some selected highlights gleaned from the S&P Directory – 2003 Edition:
1926 – S&P creates a 90 Stock Composite Price Index comprised of 50 Industrial, 20 Railroad and 20 Utility stocks.The new composite has a base period of 1926=100 and is calculated and published weekly. Historical values are available back to 1918.
1928 – S&P 90 Stock Composite Price Index is calculated and published daily.
1957 (actually March 4, 1957) – Computers are introduced, and the 500 is calculated and disseminated at one-minute intervals throughout the trading day. To create a lengthy historical time series, the new 500 is linked to the 90 Stock Composite Price Index – daily S&P 500 Index prices become available back to 1928. The modern S&P 500 consists of 425 Industrials, 60 Utilities and 15 Railroads, and has a base period on 1941-43=10.
1976 – Effective July 1, the S&P 500 is restructured to 400 Industrials, 40 Utilities, 40 Financials and 20 Transportation stocks.
1988 – Effective April 6, S&P removes the fixed-number structure set on the four major industry sectors. The 400 Industrials, 40 Utilities, 40 Financials and 20 Transportations are allowed to float.
In other words, what we now know as the S&P 500 did not come into existence until 1957. Financial stocks were not introduced into the index until 1976 and now total 79 companies, the most of any sector.
And yes, the daily high, low, close for the old S&P 90 does exist.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
“stocks are getting back to their fair value. To say they’re prolonging the inevitable is an assumption that the economy will falter again. I don’t see how this is possible at this time.”
more words of wisdom from a person who is at best a dull normal on the bell curve-
it’s ok- he won’t understand what i am saying anyway
October 19th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
HWangner writes:
“Mannwich: Yes, some minority of them may have been priced near correction. However, the overwhelming majority were priced for doomsday.”
History suggests that pricing for doomsday is when the Dow goes lower than an ounce of gold. That was nowhere near doomsday pricing.
Although I generally enjoy your perspective, you do have a tendency to add a lot of bogus statements in an attempt to support your views. No need to do this as you generally are on pretty sound ground.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Obviously things are fine because the green shoots are blossoming, we’re in line with the 38′ recovery.
15 4/2/38 11/12/38 65.79%
What’s with all those dates in 33′ ?
October 20th, 2009 at 3:41 am
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