What was the best year ever for the S&P 500 (Index: SPX)? What was the worst year ever for the index?

These are questions that are usually answered with tables of data. And that's fine if all you want to know is how much the value of the S&P 500 changed over the course of a year. But what if you also want to know when during the year that the best or worst year became the index' best or worst year?

Data tables won't cut in in that situation. In this case, what you really want is a chart that visually presents the best ever and worst ever extremes for these stocks, then shows the trajectory the index took throughout the year to reach its end.

We've built that chart, here it is using available daily trading data for the S&P 500 from 1950 through 2024:

The best year ever for the S&P 500 is 1954. That was a year in which the index was always above its mean and median trajectories. But it wasn't until some 211 trading days into the 253 trading-day long year that it set the mark as the best year ever for the S&P 500. The S&P 500 ended 1954 at a level (35.98) that was 144.2% above where it closed on the year's first day of trading (24.95).

The worst year ever for the stocks that collective make up the composite-weighted index is 2008. Stock prices stayed below the mean and median trajectories throughout the year, but also never rose above the level they were on the first trading day of 2008. Even though the year was a bad one for the S&P 500, it didn't become the index' worst year ever until 196 trading days into the year. It then stayed the worst year ever for another 57 trading days past that. The index started the year at closing out 2008 at a level (903.25) just 62.4% of the level it was at the end of the year's first day of trading (1,447.16).

For good measure, we also charted the S&P 500's trajectory during 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic struck the U.S. The index started 2020 mostly bouncing around the median and mean trajectory for stocks and had just risen above those levels when stocks started to crash about 35 trading days into the year. That crash continued and by the 49th trading day of the year, 2020 became the worst year ever for the S&P 500 at that point in time.

But 2020 only sets that bar through the 78th trading day of the year. The S&P 500 went on to recover and ultimately ended the year at a value (3,756.10) some 114.6% of the value at which it closed on the first trading day of the year (3,257.85). That's better than either the historical average or median trajectories for the index.

References

Yahoo! Finance. S&P 500 Stock Historical Prices and Data. [Online database]. Accessed 22 February 2025.

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