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Wow! The S&P 500 is Up 5.55% in November
By JLP | November 10, 2009
The S&P 500 Total Return Index sits at 1795.12. It’s up 5.55% for the month of November and 23.55% for the year.
The S&P Midcap 400 is up 5.61% for November (31.58% YTD) and the S&P Smallcap 600 is 49.93% for the month and 18.21% YTD.
Just a little FYI for you.
Topics: Investing | 7 Comments »
November 10th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Don’t get too excited. The higher we go the farther we fall.
We’re still down 30% from peak. What does that tell you?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:35 am
My “Wow!” wasn’t one of excitement but rather one of disbelief.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
#1 JT) I’m conflicted. Your first statement seems to say SELL! Yet, your second statement seems to say BUY!
November 10th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Good point, BG…haha.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:01 am
BG,
Yeah go right ahead and “buy the dip”. Let me know 5 years from now how that works out for you. My guess is you’ll be holding stock at the same price as it is today.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:04 am
JT,
You sound just like the analysts last year at Goldman Sachs predicting oil at $200/barrel by end of 2008. Yeah at the end of 2008, oil really was at $200 barrel. Yeah, you MAY BE right that the stock valuations in 5 years will be the same as today. However, you truly don’t know whats going to happen unless you stay in the game. No one predicted and knew that the S&P 500 would be up nearly 60% from its March low. To answer your question, IT DOESN’T TELL YOU ANYTHING. PERIOD. Sure it can go up or it can go down, but just because we go higher doesn’t mean the further we fall. If you have a plan to pump over $700B into the economy, it’ll show up somewhere *points to the stock market*.
Respectfully,
BM
November 17th, 2009 at 11:27 am
#5) The best investment scheme that works over the long-haul is “Dollar-Cost Averaging”. Buy all the time, regardless of price. With market timing, you might get lucky, but eventually the DCA guy will come out ahead.
Granted, you still need to have a proper investment mix, emergency funds, etc, before investing, and only invest money you don’t need for short-time periods.
As for holding stock at the same price as today (five years from now), could be correct, but in the meantime I’m still collecting 2 or 3% yearly dividends over those five years. Five years from now, if the stock drops 10%, I still have my $100. Most stock charts do not show this dividend, so I direct you to create your own graphs using the “Adjusted Closing” price in the historical data on the finance.yahoo.com website. Pick a real fund like VFINX (Vanguard S&P 500 investor). The “Adjusted Closing” price includes the dividend payout amounts.
Historically, half the gain you get from the stock market is from the dividends, the other half is from the stock price itself.
It’s fine to gamble, just use a small amount of money to gamble with.