by Calculated Risk on 7/02/2009 04:00:00 PM

On the '00s (the "Naughts") ...

Employment Dec 1999: 130.53 million
Employment Jun 2009: 131.69 million

A gain of just 1.16 million. What are the odds that the economy loses another 1.16 million jobs over the next 6 months? Pretty high. That would mean no net jobs added to the economy for the naughts: Naught for the Naughts!

And for the stock market?

S&P 500, Dec 31, 1999: 1469.25
S&P 500, July 2, 2009: 897.29

Equity investors wish they went Naught for the Naughts.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.


The first graph shows the S&P 500 since 1990.

The dashed line is the closing price today.

The S&P 500 is up almost 33% from the bottom (221 points), and still off almost 43% from the peak (668 points below the max).


This graph is from Doug Short of dshort.com (financial planner): "Four Bad Bears".

Note that the Great Depression crash is based on the DOW; the three others are for the S&P 500.