Friday, October 2, 2009

How bad was the 2007-2008 bear market?

"When equities bottomed in November 2008, the MSCI World index had fallen 55% –– a global loss of USD 21 trillion, or USD 21,000 for every individual in the developed world. This statement appears in the Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2009. The Yearbook is a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of total returns since 1900 for stocks, bonds, cash, foreign exchange and inflation in 17 national stock markets and three worldwide indexes, covering Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

"In the Yearbook, the authors, Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton, of London Business School point out that the last decade has been the lost decade for equity investors. Since 2000, the MSCI World index has lost a third of its value in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, while the major markets all gave negative returns of an annualized 
–4% to –6%."

Of course, the November 2008 low of about 7,450 wasn't the U.S. market low of the last two years--by March 9, 2009 the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped another 1,000 points to around 6,470. 

Read the entire articled at: 
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:mxzWh0CxOJUJ:www.london.edu/newsandevents/pressreleases/pressreleases.do%3Fsection%3DEditRelease%26mode%3DgetAttachment%26releaseId%3D62%26attachmentID%3D54+worldwide+stock+market+losses&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AFQjCNHUAWkzCKkeJwKC_UUoceZUeEzChw

Many of you have been getting better results than those quoted here. Email us at support@TheMarketForecast.com and tell us how you did during the downturn.





Once more, something happening to our server... so I'll post end of day results here.
Thanks for your patience,
Steve