Ten Years

I didn't mention it before but last week marked the 10-year anniversary of the last bear market's bottom and the beginning of this bullish phase.  Now there's some debate on when this bull market actually began amongst the Wall Street crowd.  Some say the bull market didn't actually begin until we cleared the previous highs from the 1990's bull.  By that measure this current market expansion isn't that old or that impressive.  Frankly the semantics of that are lost on me.  Instead I prefer to focus on when that market turned and bullish sentiment began to prevail.  That dates this bull phase back to those March lows.

The chart above shows how a select number of major market indices have done since that date.  The returns have been pretty fantastic.  The worst performing index in this list is the Ishares S&P 100 {OEF}.  These are the largest 100 companies in the S&P 500.  That index is ONLY up 373% during that time.  The Nasdaq Invesco QQQ Trust is up over 650%.  Note I'm not sure if these returns include dividends.  If they don't then these returns are even better.  

Remember this chart the next time the "Gloom and Doomers" rule the airwaves.

Note:  I am long the majority of these indices in various client and personal accounts.  Also the chart is from Stockcharts.com.  They are the ones who calculate the data and the returns.  You can double-click on the chart to make it larger if you'd like.

Back Friday.