Another milestone: Most boring market in decades
This year’s run to a NEW YORK — record for the stock market has been one of the calmest in decades. Just don’t get too comfortable.
Only twice this year have investors had to deal with a 1 percent drop for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index in a day. That’s far fewer than typical.
The last time stocks sailed through such an uneventful first seven months was when a group of burglars was arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex in 1972.
Broaden the scope to include when the S&P 500 fell or rose by 1 percent in a day, and this could be the least volatile year for stocks since 1964, if the current pace holds.
But as central banks start to wean markets off the stimulus they’ve injected into the global economy, many money manag-
ers say they’re preparing for a bumpier ride ahead.
For now, markets have been so calm that the biggest loss for the S&P 500 last week was just 0.2 percent. Compare that to the whiplash investors felt during the summer of 2011, when the S&P 500 swung by more than 4 percent each day during one four-day stretch.
Investors fortunate enough to be in the market have enjoyed all the upside of owning stocks with almost none of the traditional downside. Stocks are supposed to be volatile, and investors have long accepted that having to stomach big swings in price is one of the costs of owning them. But the largest stock fund by assets, Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index fund, has already returned 11.2 percent in 2017 with only a few big down days.
“At the surface, it is surprising” how calm stocks have been, says Greg Davis, Vanguard’s chief investment officer. “But it’s not surprising if you think about a world where central banks have been unbelievably accommodative.”