Go here to see this blog post in a video. I recently read how the S&P 500 had closed below its 200-day moving average for 110 trading sessions, which is the longest streak since the bear markets of 08 and 2000 through 2002. A moving average is a form of technical analysis which takes what has happened and displays it in graphical form on a chart. Technical analysis is used by some to take past events and attempt to use them to predict what will happen. Will they be right? Only time will tell. So, let’s look at what has happened after those two bear markets. How did the S&P 500 perform coming out of those markets?

Coming out of 2002, the market returned 28%, and the next 3 years it returned 14% per year and over 5 years it returned 13% per year. Coming out of 08, the market returned 26%, 14% on average for 3 years, and 18% on average for 5 years. What has happened won’t predict what will happen, but negative returns are temporary, and we just don’t know how long they will last. It’s looking like 2022 will be a negative year, but those negative years always lead into positive years – we’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again – but now is a great opportunity to get retirement money into the market before the next market turnaround takes off. Just think about it, if you could back and buy stocks in 02 and 08, would you? We’re faced with that same opportunity right now, so take advantage of it!