Worst 10-Year Stretch in the history of the Standard & Poor’s 500

[RedEarth]

A 10-Year Stretch That’s Worse Than It Looks
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: February 6, 2009




IN the last 82 years — the history of the Standard & Poor’s 500 — the stock market has been through one Great Depression and numerous recessions. It has experienced bubbles and busts, bull markets and bear markets.

But it has never seen a 10-year stretch as bad as the one that ended last month.

Over the 10 years through January, an investor holding the stocks in the S.& P.’s 500-stock index, and reinvesting the dividends, would have lost about 5.1 percent a year after adjusting for inflation, as is shown in the accompanying chart.

......


Taking inflation and dividends into account, an investor who put money into the market any time after the end of 1996, and held on, now has less value than when he or she started.

......much more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/07charts.html?_r=1

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Gen X is pretty much fucked for retirement.

The 90s is when most of us started our retirement accounts.

[Skittles]

2. lots of us Boomers are fucked too-