Stock Market Cassandras and Pollyannas Are Stuck in Limbo
Doomsayers get a lot of the attention, and perma-bulls get the rest. But in the past 11 months, they’ve all been wrong.
Sideways.
Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg
The most foolproof way to attract attention on Wall Street is to make a hyperbolically negative call, and the past year has had no shortage of them.
So far, the crash hasn’t materialized. For all the perceived and real volatility, the S&P 500 Index has essentially ping-ponged around 4,000 for the past 11 months. About 81% of trading days have closed within 5% of that level in the period despite the continuing bull market in news reports mentioning the words “recession” and “bear market.” The market is going nowhere fast, humbling arch-optimists and pessimists alike. (Even Jamie Dimon has become more evenhanded in his latest letter to investors.) To assess whether the loudmouths were wrong — or just early — I looked at the history of sideways stock markets.