It’s been a lurching ride, and in April, it seemed to be over. But the bull market in the S&P 500 survived the severe downturn set off by President Trump’s tariffs, along with countless other setbacks.
Consider how far the bull market has come since its unheralded birth a little over three years ago during the Biden administration. The S&P 500 at that point had fallen more than 25 percent amid soaring pandemic-era inflation and rising interest rates. But on Oct. 12, 2022, the U.S. stock market turned.
From that date through Oct. 8 of this year, the S&P 500 stock index gained nearly 88 percent. Including dividends, according to FactSet, a financial data firm, investments in low-cost S&P 500 index funds returned more than 97 percent. That means that investors in low-cost, market-tracking index funds were able to nearly double their money since the bull market’s start.
But when the bull market was born, almost nobody noticed. “There’s a saying on Wall Street that there’s always a bull market somewhere,” CNN said on Oct. 31, 2022, but, it added, wherever the bull might have gone, it certainly wasn’t in the United States. “The broader market is undeniably struggling this year,” CNN said.
I missed that boat, too. On Oct. 21, 2022, I wrote a column, “Investing in the Shadow of a Recession,” with this summary: “Recessions come in many varieties. Any would bring pain, but if history is a guide, stocks and bonds are likely to rise eventually.”
I was focused on a possible recession — which didn’t happen — and failed to see that a bull market had already begun. Obviously, I didn’t know where either the economy or the market was going. But at least I knew that I didn’t know. Because stocks tend to rise over many decades, I believed then, as I do now, that it makes sense to keep investing in them for the long term, regardless.
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