And in more ways than one. Five years ago today, the S&P 500 closed at a peak of 1,565.15. Since then the index has seen a huge decline followed by a huge rally. After all those swings, the S&P 500 has declined 7.9% over the last five years. Annualizing that decline works out to a loss of 1.63% per year.
What some people may not remember, however, is that exactly five years prior to the S&P 500's all-time high made on October 9th, 2007, the index bottomed out from the 2000-2002 bear market at a level of 776.76. Following the post-Internet bubble low on 10/9/02, the index rallied more than a 100% before dropping more than 50%+ from 2007 to 2009. After bottoming out in March 2009, the index has since rallied more than 100% once again. Netting out those three monster moves, the S&P 500 is currently 85.6% higher today than it was ten years ago. Annualizing that gain over ten years works out to 6.38% per year. For all the talk that the market hasn't done anything over the last decade, 6.38% is a lot better than many of the options faced by investors today.
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