What a difference eight years makes.
On March 9, 2009, the S&P 500 reached 676.53, its lowest point in the financial crisis. Today, the index is comfortably over 2,300, and many analysts expect a continued bull run into the future.
Yet an eight-year bull market is in itself extraordinary, says Omar Aguilar.
“The average bull market cycle runs from three to five years. This one is remarkable in that it has been extended to eight years,” says Aguilar, senior vice president and CIO for equities and multi-asset strategies at Charles Schwab Investment Management. “The biggest difference is that this bull market came as the result of the deep financial crisis, triggered a significant amount of intervention, and that intervention maintained a floor for the market to continue to run until now.”
The S&P 500 gained more than 250 percent between the 2009 bottom and March 27, 2017, with 400 of its constituents at least doubling in value during that period.
Some industry sectors outpaced the S&P 500—for example, the MSCI U.S. Investable Market Consumer Discretionary Index grew by nearly 400 percent.
“It was a new economy rally,” says David Lafferty, senior vice president and chief market strategist at Natixis Global Asset Management. “Internet retail, e-media companies, health-care technology, information technology and consumer discretionary—these were the best places to be.”
Eight percent of the S&P 500’s constituents, 40 stocks all told, returned at least 1,000 percent since the crisis bottom, while the best-performing stock of the bull market, General Growth Properties (GGP), experienced an increase in share price of more than 7,500 percent. Popular large-cap stocks like Expedia, Ulta Beauty, priceline.com and Netflix were also listed among the fastest growers.
The worst performing companies come from the slowest-growing sectors: Energy, utilities and consumer staples have underperformed the S&P 500 over the past eight years.