Some more useless trivia from me...
Here is an addition to Sparky's table post.
Small % declines only require small % rallies to get back the losses...however this equation is exponential in nature.
During the last bear market cycle (2007 -2009) the S&P500 buy and hold portfolio declined 57% therefore a bull market rally of +132% is needed to get back that loss.
Due to this exponential nature one can expect their buy and hold portfolio recovery back to square one to take many bull years...
As seen from the table below the huge difference between a Great Recession to that of a Depression...The S&P500 got severely mauled (-57%) during the 2007 -2009 bear market cycle when USA economy experienced a great recession. Spare a thought for Greece, the Athens stock market (ASE) went from ~5300 to ~600 (~90%)during its 2008-2011 bear market cycle when Greece plunged into a lengthy depression...The good news is in the last 18 months the ASE was one of the top performing sharemarkets as it went up ~100% after its ~90% drop the bad news is the ASE needs to rally ~900% to break even from its ~90% drop ..to put it into perspective the ASE would need two more years performing as the best sharemarket in the world with 100%/pa performances ...This task would seem impossible as the DOW in its last 113 years managed +82% in 1915...its next best year is +67% in 1933 straight after its depression bear cycle....
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