Last April I updated some key market statistics, as well as taking a look at big moments in Wall Street History. Much of this is a repeat, but there are a few new tidbits you won't easily find elsewhere, least of all in one place. Print it and save!

Dow Jones

Best year: 1915...+81.7%
Worst year: 1931...-53.7%

1929 Crash

Dow Jones peaked on September 3, 1929 at 381.
October 28...260
October 29...230
April 17, 1930...Dow closes at 294. What's the big deal?
July 8, 1932...Dow closes at 41.22. Oh. Just your basic 90% decline from the 9/3/29 peak.

Bear Market of 1973-74

Dow Jones peaked on 1/11/73...1051
Dow bottoms on 12/6/74...577. A decline of 45%.

Dow 1,000

The Dow Jones first crossed the 1,000 level, intra-day, two times in each of January and February 1966. But the average didn't close above 1,000 until November 11, 1972.

Crash of 1987

The Dow Jones peaked on August 25, 1987 at 2722.
As of October 5, the Dow was still at 2640. Then...
Tuesday, Oct. 13...Dow closes at 2508, up 37 points.
Wednesday, Oct. 14...Dow 2412
Thursday, Oct. 15...Dow 2355
Friday, Oct. 16...Dow 2246...uh oh...
Monday, Oct. 19...Dow closes at 1738, intra-day low was 1677.

*The scariest day, however, was probably Tuesday, Oct. 20, when the Dow hit 1616 before rallying (thanks to the Fed) to close at 1841. But, only about 200 issues on the NYSE rose that day, as there were legitimate fears of a total financial breakdown. Nasdaq fell 9% that Tuesday.

Returns for the decade of the...

60s - Dow Jones +17.8% (not including dividends)
70s - Dow Jones +4.8% (yup...that's it)
80s - Dow Jones +228%, Nasdaq +200%
90s - Dow Jones +318%, Nasdaq +796%
00s - Dow Jones -13%, Nasdaq -52% [2000& 2001]

Key index #'s for the past few years

10/11/90...start of the 90s bull move.

Dow Jones 2365...trailing p/e, 11.6; dividend yield, 4.2%
S&P 500 295...trailing p/e, 14.1
Nasdaq 325
Bulls: 32.2% Bears: 53.7% [Investors Intelligence]
Avg. daily volume on NYSE, 155 million

12/31/97

Dow Jones 7908
S&P 500 970
Russell 2000 437
Nasdaq 1570

10/8/98...bottom of Russian / Long-Term Capital Mgmt. crises

Dow Jones 7731
S&P 500 959
Russell 2000 310
Nasdaq 1419

12/31/98

Dow Jones 9181
S&P 500 1229
Russell 2000 421
Nasdaq 2192

6/30/99...Fed starts raising interest rates

Dow Jones 10970
Nasdaq 2680

12/31/99

Dow Jones 11497
S&P 500 1469...*7/16/99, S&P trailing p/e peaks at 37
Russell 2000 504
Nasdaq 4069

12/31/00

Dow Jones 10786
S&P 500 1320
Russell 2000 483
Nasdaq 2470

12/31/01

Dow Jones 10021
S&P 500 1148
Russell 2000 489
Nasdaq 1950

All-time highs

Dow Jones 11722 (1/14/00)
S&P 500 1527 (3/24/00)
Nasdaq 5048 (3/10/00)

Yearly returns...* "Total return" for both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500.

Dow Jones

'95 +36.4%
'96 +28.6%
'97 +24.9%
'98 +18.1%
'99 +27.2%
'00 -4.6%
'01 -5.4%

S&P 500

'95 +37.4%
'96 +23.1%
'97 +33.4%
'98 +28.6%
'99 +21.0%
'00 -9.1%
'01 -11.9%

[The S&P 500 has twice had 3 straight years of declines, 1929-31 and 1939-41.]

Russell 2000

'95 +26.2%
'96 +14.8%
'97 +20.5%
'98 -3.5%
'99 +19.6%
'00 -4.2%
'01 +1.0%

Nasdaq

'95 +39.9%
'96 +22.7%
'97 +21.6
'98 +39.6%
'99 +85.6%
'00 -39.3%
'01 -21.1%

Bear Market of 2000-2001

Decline from all-time high to 9/21/01 lows.

Dow Jones -29.7% [11722 to 8235]
S&P 500 -36.8% [1527 to 965]
Nasdaq -71.8% [5048 to 1423]

*Week of 9/17/01, the Dow Jones fell 14.3%, Nasdaq 16.1%.

Gold...closing price for the year. [Someone out there cares.]

'96...$368
'97...$289
'98...$288
'99...$289
'00...$272
'01...$279

Oil...closing price for the year.

'99...$25.20
'00...$26.80
'01...$19.84

Treasury Yields

12/31/99

2-yr. 6.24%
10-yr. 6.43%

12/31/00...Fed raises funds rate 6 times (6/99-5/00) to 6.50%.

2-yr. 5.09%
10-yr. 5.11%

12/31/01...Fed lowers funds rate 11 times in '01, 6.50% - 1.75%.

2-yr. 3.05%
10-yr. 5.03%

Market Highs

Sorry, if you owned a lot of the following, but this is "Wall Street History," after all. All-time highs:

AOL 1/3/00 $83
AT&T 3/29/00 $61
Apple 3/23/00 $75
Amazon.com 12/9/99 $113
Cisco 3/27/00 $82
Ciena 10/20/00 $151
Corning 8/30/00 $113
Dell 3/22/00 $60
EMC 9/25/00 $105
eBay 3/27/00 $127
Intel 8/28/00 $76
JDS Uniphase 3/7/00 $153
Juniper 10/16/00 $245
Lucent 12/29/99 $74
Microsoft 12/30/99 $120
Nortel 7/25/00 $89
Oracle 9/1/00 $46
Sun Micro 9/1/00 $65
Yahoo 1/4/00 $250

As Bond King William Gross once said, "Today's winning technology is tomorrow's sinkhole."

Seasonality

This simply cannot be ignored. Most of you know that since 1950, investing in the market from November 1 - April 30 yields far superior returns than being in the market only from May 1 - October 31. In the 2002 edition of Yale Hirsch's "Stock Trader's Almanac," he spells it out accordingly.

For the S&P 500, if you invested $10,000 back in 1950:

May 1 - Oct. 31 would have grown to only $11,408. But...
Nov. 1 - Apr. 30 would have yielded $314,056!

However, Mr. Hirsch was not able to add in the 5/1/01-10/31/01 period due to publication deadlines. Well, I was checking my own stats and the S&P 500 fell 15.2% during that stretch (1249.46 to 1059.78); meaning that the compounded return on the S&P 500 is now around $9,670...down since 1950! [And, as of this writing, the S&P 500 has rebounded nicely since 10/31, thus, once again, confirming the seasonality factor.]

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Note: The above figures were collected from various sources (including Ibbotson Associates) and are deemed to be accurate.

*Due to time constraints, I am unable to honor any individual requests for market data.

Brian Trumbore

BUYandHOLD does not recommend any securities. The securities mentioned above are being used for informational purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy.