A rough 4 months for stocks: S&P 500 books the worst start to a year since 1939.
Here’s what pros say you should do now.
The Nasdaq Composite just notched the worst start to a calendar year in its history, dating back to 1971
To say that it has been a perilous stretch for bullish stock investors on Wall Street lately is a bit of an understatement.
Marked by stomach-churning volatility and bruising losses in once-popular technology trades, the S&P 500 booked its worst start to a year, through the first four months of 2022, in over 80 years, with the steepest decline in April, down 4.9%, since at least 2002 contributing to the unsettling, bearish tone.
The broad-market S&P 500 SPX, -3.63% closed out Friday down 13.3%, representing the most unsightly four-month period to start a calendar year since 1939, when it declined 17.3% (see table).
Year | First 4 Months % Change |
1932 | -28.2 |
1939 | -17.3 |
1941 | -12 |
1942 | -11.85 |
1970 | -11.5 |
2022 |