As the 10th anniversary of the climactic March 2009 market bottom arrives this week, many observers are focusing on all the ways this period since the global financial crisis has been extraordinary.
This chart, put together by Michael Batnick of Ritholtz Wealth Management, tracks the rolling 10-year trailing returns for U.S. stocks since 1935. A horizontal line drawn back in time from the current level would intersect with several of those moments ten years after a brutal market washout - including in the mid-1950s.A few observations can be taken from this long-term view of how the market runs through alternating generous and stingy phases.
Keep in mind, this trailing return will start to be weighed down simply by arithmetic, as we move ahead in time and the dramatic March 2009 low exits the ten-year return window, replaced by higher index readings as a starting point. This is where the objections will come, arguing somehow that the past decade simply cannot be credibly compared to earlier periods."It was all central banks," they'll say - which was also said in the '80s and '90s.
Joseph Fahmy of Zor Capital, has for a few years now been treating the 2009 market low as analogous to the 1987 crash. Yes, of course, the '87 crash did not happen during a recession and its broader economic impact was limited, unlike the 2007-'09 meltdown.The second chart ends just before the nasty, near-20-percent sell-off late last year - which caused many to argue the long bull market perhaps ended with the September 2018 high.