Friday, February 27, 2009

A lost decade for stocks


The intra-day low on the S&P 500 so far today was 734.52. That's lower than the intra-day low (742.61) on December 5, 1996—the day Alan Greenspan gave his famous "irrational exuberance" speech. The closing price that day was 744.38. If it doesn't happen today, we will likely close below that level within the next week or so.

From that day until today, you would have been better off investing in short-term Treasury bonds.

Update: The S&P 500 ended the day at 735.09, lower than when Alan Greenspan warned of a possible stock market bubble over 12 years ago.