The Bull Market’s Greatest Feat? Sowing Doubt
This stock market rally hasn’t been as intense as many others that preceded it.
Intensity of each bull market
More intense
The darker the shading, the quicker it rose.*
3,000
S&P 500
1,000
Scale is logarithmic
to show comparable
percentage changes
2
3,652
days
1
+305%
4,494
days
100
+582%
5
1,839
days
+229%
10
3
The five
longest bull
markets
2,954
days
4
2,248
days
+263%
+126%
1
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Intensity of each bull market
More intense
The darker the shading, the quicker it rose.*
3,000
1,000
S&P 500
Scale is logarithmic to show
comparable percentage changes
3,652
days
1,826
days
+305%
100
+102%
4,494
days
+582%
1,839
days
+229%
10
2,248
days
The six longest
bull markets
2,954
days
+126%
+263%
1
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Intensity of each bull market
More intense
The darker the shading, the quicker it rose.*
3,000
1,000
S&P 500
Scale is logarithmic to show
comparable percentage changes
100
The six longest
bull markets
10
2,954
days
2,248
days
1,839
days
4,494
days
1,826
days
3,652
days
+263%
+126%
+229%
+582%
+102%
+305%
1
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
*The duration of each bull market counts all calendar days. Intensity is measured by the percentage gain for each bull market divided by its number of calendar days. Data is through March 9.
Sources: MacroTrends; Yardeni Research; Thomson Reuters
By Karl Russell
By Stephen Grocer
Ten years ago, when the global financial crisis seemed at its worst, the stock market hit rock bottom.
The bull run that has followed now ranks among the greatest rallies of the past century: The S&P 500 has more than quadrupled, adding $17.5 trillion in value, and, of the 11 bull markets since the end of World War II, only the run that ended with the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 tops the current one in duration and returns.
But despite the superlatives, this rally’s primary characteristic is how much skepticism it generated. The intensity of gains that defined the stock market bubbles of the 1920s and 1990s never developed. Instead, many investors spent the past decade deriding the rally and anticipating its demise.
Bull markets are usually driven by a strengthening economy that fuels corporate profits. But the economic scars of the downturn a decade ago were deep and the recovery slow.
For much of the past decade, economic growth remained lackluster; corporate earnings, at least until last year, were uninspiring; and the global economy bounced from one crisis to the next. There was the sovereign debt crisis that wracked the eurozone, concerns about the health of China’s economy and its growing debt load, tumbling oil prices that dragged down energy-sector profits, and, most recently, concerns about global economy and trade.
True, the bull market never succumbed to these worries (although it came awfully close more than once). Credit for that goes to the world’s central banks whose efforts to keep interest rates low made bond investments and other alternatives unappealing, and kept fueling the stock buying.
This is not to say that investors weren’t excited about some stocks. Investors piled into shares of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft and those four stock had a big effect on the S&P 500, particularly in the last few years.
Over the past decade, and factoring in dividends, the four biggest tech companies accounted for 9 percent of the gains in the S&P 500, according to data from Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Top contributors to the bull market
Apple
1.
3.90
%
Microsoft
2.41
2.
JPMorgan Chase
3.
1.92
General Electric
4.
1.67
Wells Fargo
5.
1.52
Johnson & Johnson
6.
1.33
Amazon
7.
1.30
Exxon Mobil
8.
1.27
Share of the S&P
500’s total return,
which includes
dividends, over
the last decade
I.B.M.
9.
1.20
Chevron
10.
1.14
Pfizer
11.
1.12
Procter & Gamble
12.
1.12
AT&T
13.
1.09
Bank of America
14.
1.08
Intel
15.
1.02
Philip Morris
16.
0.95
Cisco Systems
17.
0.93
Home Depot
18.
0.91
Alphabet (Google)*
19.
0.90
Coca-Cola
20.
0.89
Top contributors to the bull market
1.
Apple
3.90
%
Microsoft
2.41
2.
3.
JPMorgan Chase
1.92
4.
General Electric
1.67
5.
Wells Fargo
1.52
6.
Johnson & Johnson
1.33
7.
Amazon
1.30
8.
Exxon Mobil
1.27
9.
I.B.M.
1.20
Share of the S&P 500’s
total return, which
includes dividends,
over the last decade
10.
Chevron
1.14
11.
Pfizer
1.12
12.
Procter & Gamble
1.12
13.
AT&T
1.09
14.
Bank of America
1.08
15.
Intel
1.02
16.
Philip Morris
0.95
17.
Cisco Systems
0.93
18.
Home Depot
0.91
19.
Alphabet (Google)*
0.90
20.
Coca-Cola
0.89
Data is through March 5. *Class A shares.
Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices
By Karl Russell
When it comes to actual performance of their shares, Alphabet and Microsoft gained more than 600 percent over the past decade, while Apple jumped nearly 1,400 percent and Amazon surged nearly 2,600 percent.
It wasn’t just the tech companies themselves that fared well. The best-performing bank stock over the past decade was SVB Financial, Silicon Valley’s so-called hometown bank, which rose almost 1,900 percent.
For all the attention paid to technology shares though, the honor of best-performing stock in the S&P 500 over the past decade actually goes to Ulta Beauty, the cosmetics retailer. Its shares have surged more than 7,000 percent.
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