Photo by Nicholas Cappello on Unsplash

Investors who have owned cryptocurrencies, stay-at-home plays and Reddit “meme” stocks have made a killing in the market in the past two years. But you didn’t have to be a stock-picking genius to generate some historically good returns since March 23, 2020.

Even investors who took a conservative, diversified approach to the market and timed the March 2020 pandemic bottom have made a tremendous return on their investment at this point.

Pandemic Sell-Off

The SPY fund started 2020 on a high note, rising from around $323 to start the year to a pre-pandemic high of $339.08 in mid-February. Unfortunately, over the next several weeks the bottom completely fell out of the market thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SPY ETF plummeted as low as $218.26 on March 23, 2020, officially ending the more than decade-long bull market following the 2008-2009 financial crisis. At the time, investors had no idea March 23 would mark the end of the shortest bear market in U.S. history at just 33 days in duration.

By May 26, 2020, the SPY was back above $300. By Aug. 18, the index was back at new all-time highs, but the rally certainly didn’t stop there. The combination of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, unprecedented government stimulus measures, a virus mortality rate that was much better than initially feared and a handful of effective vaccines sent stock prices skyrocketing well above pre-pandemic levels.

Charging Into 2022

The SPY ETF eventually reached a new all-time high of $479.98 in January 2022 before pulling back to $447.18 today.

On the two-year anniversary of the 2020 pandemic market bottom, investors who bought the dip and held on have generated some nice returns. In fact, $1,000 in the SPY ETF bought on March 23, 2020, would be worth about $2,076 today, assuming reinvested dividends.

Looking ahead to 2022, the SPY may still have room to run. Analysts are calling for S&P 500 companies to grow EPS by 9.3% this year, according to FactSet.