Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Best & Worst 35-Year Returns in Stock Market History

35-Year Rolling Returns

Previously I have published graphs of 5, 10, 20 and 50-year rolling returns. Thirty-five years may seem like a strange choice for an addition to the series. However, I chose 35 years because I thought the results might provide useful benchmarks for those planning for, for example, ages 30-65, 65-100, etc. As always, because we are looking at rolling returns, we will look at not only the best and worst 35-year returns, but at all 35-year returns.

Stock Market Rolling 35-Year Returns Graph

Stock market (Dow) rolling 35-year returns
Dow 35-Year Rolling Returns

Above is a chart of the 35-year total return of the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) beginning

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May 2010 Stock Market Update

100 Year Dow Chart with 25-Year Moving Average


Dow 25-Year Moving Average

Above is a very long-term chart of the Dow, including the 25-year moving average (click chart to expand); it uses this past month for this year's close. It shows that the market rarely falls very far below its 25-year moving average. When this graph was originally posted, I noted that the one big exception to the rule was the crash that preceeded the Great Depression.

April, Year-To-Date & Recovery-To-Date Review

In early March 2009, I posted Dow At 25-Year Moving Average. The Dow continued lower for several more days before bottoming at 6547 on March 9 --