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The 10 Worst Januarys in S&P History (2009 was the worst!)
By JLP | February 3, 2009
January’s -8.43% total return for the S&P 500 Index was the worst in the history of the index*.
I ranked the ten worst Januarys in the S&P’s history:
This year’s January return was the worst by far. But, that’s just part of the story. Take a look at the next graphic, which shows the annual return that followed the worst Januarys. As you can see, it doesn’t look too good:
Of the nine other worst Januarys, only three of them had a positive return for the entire year. Now before you go and sell everything, keep in mind that I ranked the thirty worst Januarys and 14 of them had positive returns for the year.
If you’re interested, you can read some other posts I put together on this topic:
The 50 Worst Months in S&P History and What Followed
The 50 Best Months in S&P History and What Followed
Dollar-Cost-Averaging Your Way Through the Depression
* The S&P 500 was created in February 1957. Prior to that, it was composed of 90 stocks.
Topics: Investing, Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »
February 4th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Makes me feel good knowing I was a part of history (sense the sarcasm there?).
February 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
At this stage of my life I’m a buyer of stocks so lower prices are actually a big benifit for me. Especially, if it’s just due to fear, not underlying problems with the businesss in question.
-Rick Francis
February 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
we are seeing the decline of the american empire.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Shouldn’t you look at the return for the next year, not for the year including January? Obviously if you pick a really bad month the year that includes it will have below average total returns, so that’s not very interesting.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Andy is right. What happens if you compare bad January’s with the other eleven months? That way, the bad January won’t skew the whole year. After all, we are trying to figure out whether one can make a good guess about the months to come once we know the result of a given month (January 2009).