On this day This calendar day has never seen a real shock: its wildest was 1991, when the S&P moved -2.4% in a single session 50 years ago today the S&P closed at 103.39 — it has multiplied roughly 74× since
Cover · A Century Revisited
A Century of American Equities— A Long Line on a Logarithmic Page
The line below starts in 1928 and has not broken since — through the Depression, two world wars, several oil shocks, and every technology mania in between. The logarithmic scale is this paper's ruler: it sets the cliff of 1929 and the long bull that began in 1982 on the same baseline. S&P, Nasdaq, Dow — switch between the three at will.
Compound6.38%Latest7,786Sample1928–2026
Start here and five minutes will get you the shape of the whole thing. The first two charts below are one American line read two ways: the price from 1928 to this morning, on a logarithmic page so the cliff of 1929 and the long bull that opened in 1982 sit on the same ruler — and then the handoffs of direction, which happened just fourteen times in a century. After that the frame widens: what one 1900 dollar became in six different places, how large a share of the world a single country came to hold, and why every factor an investor can buy has spent at least one decade looking broken. Those charts are only the opening. Read the rest in whatever order you like: the contents at the foot of this page list all eight volumes, and under each one the charts it is most often opened for.
Cover · Section I · S&P 500
S&P 500 · Century View
The S&P 500 Across Nearly a Century of Compounding
Begun in 1928, the S&P 500 is modern finance's longest, most-studied line. Plotted on a logarithmic page, the 1929 cliff and the 2010s bull share one scale.
Read the line closely: 1929-1932 tore off four fifths, 1966-1982 stalled for sixteen years, 2000 and 2008 cracked the skeleton of the bull. Yet after every ruin, the index climbs back onto the same log-scale extension. The dashed reference is drawn literally from the sample's first to its last close — its slope is the measured compound annual growth rate; every oscillation around it is the noise on top of compounding.
§§§§§§§
NBER recession
Bubble
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Opening level
0
1928-01-31
Latest level
0
2026-08-14
Long-term CAGR
0.00%
Dashed line = start extrapolated at this rate to today
Sample span
0 yrs
Since 1928
The Shape of Patience
Compress a century of rises and falls onto a single log year-over-year scale and the direction changes hands just fourteen times. Counting from 1928, that is roughly once every seven years. The tape prints a new price every session; this chart counts one thing only — which years those fourteen handoffs fell in, and how far the most recent one sits from today.
One dollar in 1900, put into US equities, is $124,854 after a hundred and twenty-six years. Into developed markets, $28,402; emerging markets, $4,404; long bonds, $284; bills, $69. Over the same stretch the price level went to $38. That ladder is the floor every other chart on this site stands on — and it carries its own rebuttal: emerging markets lost almost all of their ground in the first half, and from 1960 they are ahead. The second chart asks something else. America went from 15% of the world's equity value to 62%, from 24% of its output to 36%, from a negligible share of its sovereign debt to 43%. In 1900 the answers to those three questions were Britain, Britain and France.
What Works Over the Long Run
Set five factors against eleven decades and you get a five-by-eleven table that says something counterintuitive: every factor spends a decade looking broken. Momentum leads the full period at 7.7%, yet its one losing decade arrives immediately after it topped the previous one. Value is negative in three of the last four. Income has never led a decade at all. The yearbook's own warning is blunter still — across every country-decade sample it holds, 22% of factor premia were negative.
Contents
Open Any Chapter From Here
8 volumes, 41 chapters, 100 charts. Under each volume are the charts it is most often opened for — click one to land on it, click the volume to open it, or a chapter to land on its opening page.
拉取内容: 美股编年史｜美股百年走势、估值与回撤 | History of Market
This Issue·2026-08-19·Updated every trading day
Today · On the Century's Ruler As of the Aug 18, 2026 close+2.8% · last 30 trading days
1928 S&P 500 · log scale Aug 14, 2026
S&P 500, latest session
-0.69%
Only about 20% of trading days since 2000 were worse
↳ The Spike Is Tall, So the Tail Needs a Magnifier
Below the all-time high
-1.4%
Since 1928, the average intra-year drawdown is -16.2%
↳ Deepest Intrayear Drop vs Year-End Outcome
VIX
15.8
Higher than 38% of every reading since 1990
↳ VIX — The Insurance Tab
S&P 500 forward P/E
20.1×
Richer than 74% of the record since 1990
↳ S&P 500 · Trailing PE vs. Forward PE
Magnificent 7 weight
31.8%
This cycle peaked at 33.5% in 2025 — concentration's long return
↳ Seven companies, a third of US equities
On this day This calendar day has never seen a real shock: its wildest was 1991, when the S&P moved -2.4% in a single session 50 years ago today the S&P closed at 103.39 — it has multiplied roughly 74× since
Cover · A Century Revisited
A Century of American Equities— A Long Line on a Logarithmic Page
The line below starts in 1928 and has not broken since — through the Depression, two world wars, several oil shocks, and every technology mania in between. The logarithmic scale is this paper's ruler: it sets the cliff of 1929 and the long bull that began in 1982 on the same baseline. S&P, Nasdaq, Dow — switch between the three at will.
Compound6.38%Latest7,786Sample1928–2026
Start here and five minutes will get you the shape of the whole thing. The first two charts below are one American line read two ways: the price from 1928 to this morning, on a logarithmic page so the cliff of 1929 and the long bull that opened in 1982 sit on the same ruler — and then the handoffs of direction, which happened just fourteen times in a century. After that the frame widens: what one 1900 dollar became in six different places, how large a share of the world a single country came to hold, and why every factor an investor can buy has spent at least one decade looking broken. Those charts are only the opening. Read the rest in whatever order you like: the contents at the foot of this page list all eight volumes, and under each one the charts it is most often opened for.
Cover · Section I · S&P 500
S&P 500 · Century View
The S&P 500 Across Nearly a Century of Compounding
Begun in 1928, the S&P 500 is modern finance's longest, most-studied line. Plotted on a logarithmic page, the 1929 cliff and the 2010s bull share one scale.
Read the line closely: 1929-1932 tore off four fifths, 1966-1982 stalled for sixteen years, 2000 and 2008 cracked the skeleton of the bull. Yet after every ruin, the index climbs back onto the same log-scale extension. The dashed reference is drawn literally from the sample's first to its last close — its slope is the measured compound annual growth rate; every oscillation around it is the noise on top of compounding.
§§§§§§§
NBER recession
Bubble
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Opening level
0
1928-01-31
Latest level
0
2026-08-14
Long-term CAGR
0.00%
Dashed line = start extrapolated at this rate to today
Sample span
0 yrs
Since 1928
The Shape of Patience
Compress a century of rises and falls onto a single log year-over-year scale and the direction changes hands just fourteen times. Counting from 1928, that is roughly once every seven years. The tape prints a new price every session; this chart counts one thing only — which years those fourteen handoffs fell in, and how far the most recent one sits from today.
§§§§§§§
Bubble
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Plate I.7Data· 2026-08-19
The Coordinates of 126 Years
One dollar in 1900, put into US equities, is $124,854 after a hundred and twenty-six years. Into developed markets, $28,402; emerging markets, $4,404; long bonds, $284; bills, $69. Over the same stretch the price level went to $38. That ladder is the floor every other chart on this site stands on — and it carries its own rebuttal: emerging markets lost almost all of their ground in the first half, and from 1960 they are ahead. The second chart asks something else. America went from 15% of the world's equity value to 62%, from 24% of its output to 36%, from a negligible share of its sovereign debt to 43%. In 1900 the answers to those three questions were Britain, Britain and France.
What Works Over the Long Run
Set five factors against eleven decades and you get a five-by-eleven table that says something counterintuitive: every factor spends a decade looking broken. Momentum leads the full period at 7.7%, yet its one losing decade arrives immediately after it topped the previous one. Value is negative in three of the last four. Income has never led a decade at all. The yearbook's own warning is blunter still — across every country-decade sample it holds, 22% of factor premia were negative.
Contents
Open Any Chapter From Here
8 volumes, 41 chapters, 100 charts. Under each volume are the charts it is most often opened for — click one to land on it, click the volume to open it, or a chapter to land on its opening page.
S&P 500
Annual returnsMonthly seasonalityMajor drawdownsBull-market breadth
Nasdaq
Monthly seasonalityForward PEComposite, 50 yearsBull/bear regimes
Semis
Forward PE30-year chartRelative strengthAnnual returns
Info Tech
Forward PE27-year chartAnnual returnsReturn distribution
Financials
2008 autopsy27-year chartAnnual returnsReturn distribution
Mag 7
Index shareAI capexEqual-weight indexMember drawdowns
Top 10
Decade top-10 rosterCentury rank pathsWho wore the crownIndustry turnover
Other
Recovery base ratesTop-10 share, centuryPost-trough returnsPeak/trough timing
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