Look at the most difficult five-year stretches in market history and what happened in the years that followed. Each period shows the total decline, a year-by-year breakdown, and returns over the following one and two years. Periods are non-overlapping and ranked by cumulative decline, drawn from S&P 500 data going back to 1871.
Market downturns and what followed
Non-overlapping 5-year windows ranked by total loss · Right columns show the two calendar years that followed each period
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Most difficult five-year periods
Period
5-Yr Return
$10K →
— Recovery years —
Yr +1
Yr +2
Combined
Each calendar year appears in at most one period (non-overlapping, greedy worst-first selection).
Recovery = the 2 full calendar years immediately after the streak ended.
Returns are nominal total returns (price change + dividends), compounded from monthly Shiller data.
Data: Robert Shiller / Yale Economics (shillerdata.com), 1871 – present.