Six Years Since COVID Crash Low

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While it may feel like either ancient history or as though it was just yesterday, six years ago to the day, the S&P 500 put in its COVID Crash low.  A lot has happened since then, but US equities have charged higher nonetheless. Since that low, the S&P has risen nearly 200%, with a number of huge moves under the surface driving those gains. In the table below, we show the 30 S&P 500 stocks that were a part of the index both at the time of the COVID Crash low (3/23/20) through today that have experienced the largest rallies over the past six years.

In total, there have been 17 ten-baggers since the COVID Crash low, and five stocks are up 1,500%+. That includes both Broadcom (AVGO) and NVIDIA (NVDA), which have joined the trillion dollar market cap club.

The 30 stocks shown below had a collective market cap of $735 billion at the time of the COVID low. Today, their combined market cap has eclipsed $10 trillion!

NVDA has been by far the biggest winner over this span thanks to both the early 2020s crypto boom and the emergence of AI.  A number of Energy stocks have also found themselves on this list, thanks to a combination of solid dividend yields and exceptional price returns, especially more recently.

One final name that has been a top performer since COVID may be a surprise: Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL).  Even though six years ago this name was at the epicenter of lockdown doom, it's up 857% since, which ranks as the 20th best.

Pivoting back to the broader market, below we show the S&P 500 since the start of 2020. In the past several years, apart from the COVID Crash, there have been plenty of tough periods for the market including a prolonged bear in 2022, a near bear this time last year during the height of tariff turmoil, and this month once again with the war in Iran.

Amidst the turmoil, stocks haven't struggled to eventually recover, and it would now take historic declines to return to levels from those prior periods.

Even after pulling back some from recent highs, we would note that it would require a 27.7% decline from current levels for the S&P 500 to return to its first post-COVID bull market high (1/3/22), and it would take a 46.1% drop to get back to the October 2022 bear market low.

For some historical context, only four (of the index's 27 total) bear markets have seen larger declines than that over their full course from peak to trough. Further, it would require a nearly 50% drop to return to pre-COVID highs made on 2/19/20. There have only been three bear markets to see 50%+ drops in the S&P's history. And finally, even if the S&P mirrored its worst bear market ever (a 62% decline during the 1931-1932 bear), the index would still be above its COVID Crash low from six years ago, which is 66% below current levels.