Since you started: what the market did from the month you got in
Pick the month you began. The S&P 500 (SPY)'s price change from the first session of that month to Oct 26, 2026, the worst fall you sat through on the way, the number of sessions that dropped 2% or more, and the record closes you saw. Every figure is a published close against another. Historical context, not a forecast, and not a verdict on the decision.
Choose a month. Without JavaScript, the table below shows every January start.
Keep this where you will see it on the next bad day
| Started | Change since | Worst fall | 2%+ down days | Record closes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | +1639.8% | −56.5% | 340 | 724 |
| 1994 | +1545.0% | −56.5% | 338 | 711 |
| 1995 | +1569.7% | −56.5% | 335 | 716 |
| 1996 | +1130.2% | −56.5% | 335 | 631 |
| 1997 | +932.6% | −56.5% | 331 | 596 |
| 1998 | +683.5% | −56.5% | 319 | 556 |
| 1999 | +521.3% | −56.5% | 305 | 508 |
| 2000 | +425.6% | −56.5% | 296 | 481 |
| 2001 | +493.4% | −56.5% | 273 | 515 |
| 2002 | +561.7% | −56.5% | 254 | 563 |
| 2003 | +739.4% | −56.5% | 221 | 615 |
| 2004 | +587.2% | −56.5% | 214 | 575 |
| 2005 | +535.4% | −56.5% | 214 | 554 |
| 2006 | +503.3% | −56.5% | 214 | 536 |
| 2007 | +440.7% | −56.5% | 214 | 498 |
| 2008 | +427.4% | −53.0% | 203 | 486 |
| 2009 | +722.3% | −34.1% | 163 | 596 |
| 2010 | +574.5% | −34.1% | 138 | 559 |
| 2011 | +501.7% | −34.1% | 128 | 523 |
| 2012 | +499.6% | −34.1% | 108 | 520 |
| 2013 | +423.4% | −34.1% | 105 | 486 |
| 2014 | +317.9% | −34.1% | 103 | 423 |
| 2015 | +272.1% | −34.1% | 100 | 371 |
| 2016 | +280.3% | −34.1% | 92 | 376 |
| 2017 | +239.4% | −34.1% | 87 | 340 |
| 2018 | +184.4% | −34.1% | 87 | 282 |
| 2019 | +205.6% | −34.1% | 73 | 302 |
| 2020 | +135.3% | −34.1% | 68 | 229 |
| 2021 | +107.3% | −25.4% | 44 | 199 |
| 2022 | +60.0% | −25.4% | 38 | 125 |
| 2023 | +100.7% | −19.0% | 15 | 170 |
| 2024 | +61.7% | −19.0% | 14 | 128 |
| 2025 | +30.8% | −19.0% | 10 | 72 |
| 2026 | +11.9% | −9.1% | 2 | 28 |
How to read it
The change is the easy number and the least informative one. The other three are the record of what it took to collect it: how far the pot fell from its high at the worst point, how many days ended more than 2% down, and how many times a new high was set — which is also how many times the previous fall was fully recovered. Two readers with the same change can have lived through very different records, and the one who sat through the deeper fall is the one whose result was harder to keep.
Price only: dividends, fees and tax are not in it, and neither is inflation. The series is S&P 500 (SPY) daily closes from Twelve Data, the same one behind Market Memory. For what a fall of a given size needs to recover, see loss recovery; for how rare any single day was, the Market Memory pages; for the definitions, the methodology page.
One question
Find the worst fall in your own record. What did you do that week — and would you have done it knowing the number of record closes that came after?