Market Looks Like This Pig At The Moment
End of the bull? What bull?
Friday, March 07, 2008
You may have noticed that Market Blog is a big fan of Bespoke Investment Group. It seems that
just about every day, the Bespoke blog can churn out interesting tidbits on the market that can make just about anyone put down his or her cup of coffee and say “Hmm.”
The latest coffee-pausing hit: Unless you managed to invest in the S&P 500 at its lowest point this decade, in 2003, and instead invested at the start of each year, you would be sitting on cumulative gains of less than 20 per cent in all cases – not much given that we were supposed to be in a rip-roaring bull market until recently.
For example, your total gains since 2004 would be an okay-but-hardly-stellar 17 per cent. It gets worse: Total gains since 2005 would be just 8 per cent. Since 2006: a measly 4 per cent.
“Now, we’re all familiar with the long-term historical performance of 6 per cent to 8 per cent annually for equities, but even during the most recent bull market of this decade, that hasn’t happened unless you’re timing was spot on,” Bespoke said on its blog. “Any new market participants over the past few years have really just seen a lot of back and forth action.”
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