Nancy B King

Now, I know why I have been feeling so unenthusiastic about stocks—other than we are in a major recession with no substantial sign of sustainable growth coming our way.

I’ve been working on a lecture about economic cycles and the return on stocks, bonds, and cash. Since I do not have access to the Ibbotson data, I’ve been digging around the Internet and found a great data table from Aswath Damdaran. Take a look at the chart I created from his data, particularly for the return on stocks from 2000-2009 —a minus 0.96%. That is like, “Oh, my gosh!” I know there have been ‘up times’, but the ‘down times’ seem to have left a more lasting impression on me.

Stocks were up 25.92% in 2009. However, stocks were down 36.58% in 2008. Maybe that is why the Downs make more of an impression on me than the Ups.