As we wave goodbye to the “zeros decade”, Chart of the Day highlighted the price performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Index for each decade since 1900.
As the graph below illustrates, the performance of the Dow from the end of 1999 through 2009 was the second worst performance on record. “Only the Great Depression decade of the 1930s was worse. The current zeros decade also shares an unfortunate outcome with the 1930s in being a decade during which the Dow actually ended lower than where it started,” said Chart of the Day.
Does the fact that we have never seen two consecutive decades of negative growth give us any comfort for the decade that starts on January 1? Nobody really knows, but we will find out by 2019.
Source: Chart of the Day, December 31, 2009.