5 Historical Facts About the Stock Market

1. Historically, the Dow has been positive 52% of the total trading days and negative 48%. The average daily return is 0.73% when it’s up and -0.76% when it’s down.
2. There is no significant difference between the Dow and the S&P 500. The rolling one-year correlation since 1970 is 0.95.
3. Between 1980 and 2018, there were 36 corrections. (A stock market correction is a downturn of 10% or more.) That’s 36 corrections in 30 years.
4. If there were 36 corrections between 1980 and 2018, there were also 36 recoveries.
5. The long-term trend of the stock market is positive, yielding between 8% and 11% annually, depending on how you do your calculations.