Chart Of The Day: Lost Decade Edition

Take a look at this chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor’s 500, and the NASDAQ index for the ten year period that just ended:

The DJIA ended the decade about 7% higher than where it started, but most of that can be attributed to gains during the month of December 2010. The S&P and NASDAQ both ended the decade lower than where they started.

FILED UNDER: Economics and Business
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Jake P says:

    For another perspective, look at the chart of the Dow vs. gold. (It’s a 20-yr chart, but you’ll get the idea.)
    http://kirklindstrom.blogspot.com/2010/09/dow-gold-ratio-djia-vs-gld.html

  2. tom p says:

    Boy, that Obama guy really hates Wall Street, doesn’t he?

  3. john personna says:

    The single most important factor for stock market investors is their choice in birth-date 😉

  4. Dave Schuler says:

    There was a similar period from the mid 1960s through the early 1980s. Up until the 80s bull market. Long periods of up and down moves with little net gain punctuated by periods of huge gains are the norm in the stock market not the exception.

  5. KipEsquire says:

    The “mid-60’s through mid-80’s” example is of course attributable to the “Nifty Fifty” bubble (fueled in large part by Johnsonian inflation) and demonstrates — not much really.

    The more accurate point is that bubbles happen — and they tend to happen because of government manipulation.

  6. john personna says:

    Government policies are definitely an input, but only one input in a vast slow-moving non-linear system. I mean, think energy prices as another input with huge and also slow-moving impact. Markets boom with cheap oil.

  7. michael reynolds says:

    The more accurate point is that bubbles happen — and they tend to happen because of government manipulation.

    Like when the government created that big internet bubble by telling us an internet pet food company should be worth billions. Damned government.