Current:Home > reviewsThe bear market is finally over. Here's why investors see better days ahead. -Momentum Wealth Path
The bear market is finally over. Here's why investors see better days ahead.
View
Date:2025-04-15 10:06:47
Americans' investments are out of the grip of one of the longest bear markets in recent history.
The S&P 500 gained 0.6% on Thursday, pushing the market 20% higher than the trough stocks hit in October, closing at 4,294. That means Wall Street was finally released from the claws of a bear market — when stocks falls 20% or more from a recent high for a sustained period of time — that began in June 2022.
While bear markets are common, the most recent slump marked one of the first major downturns for younger investors, as well as proving especially painful for older workers who saw their retirement investments slide. Last year, Wall Street soured on stocks as the Federal Reserve began a regime of interest rate hikes to battle record-high inflation.
But the S&P 500 has bucked the bear market by gaining more than 12% this year, as what once seemed like a certain recession never materialized and the job market remained strong. The gains have helped buoy the investment holdings of millions of Americans, who suffered a $3 trillion hit to their retirement accounts last year.
Better days ahead?
"Bottom line, the economy has been very resilient," said Anthony Saglimbene, chief markets strategist at Ameriprise Financial.
"So much negativity was built into the market," he said. "While it's too early to know this for sure, stocks look like they're doing what they normally do when all the negativity has been discounted into the stock market: They start moving higher in anticipation of better days ahead."
The most recent bear market lasted 248 trading days, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing Dow Jones Market Data. By comparison, the average bear market has lasted 142 trading days.
Prior to the most recent downturn, investors suffered a short-lived bear market at the start of the pandemic, when stocks plunged more than 20% from February 19, 2020, through March 23, 2020, then regained their footing and hit new highs.
With reporting by the Associated Press.
- In:
- Wall Street
- Stock Market
veryGood! (46)
Related
- A South Texas lawmaker’s 15
- Warming Trends: Chief Heat Officers, Disappearing Cave Art and a Game of Climate Survival
- Vermont police officer, 19, killed in high-speed crash with suspect she was chasing
- Kim Kardashian Proves Her Heart Points North West With Sweet 10th Birthday Tribute
- Why we love Bear Pond Books, a ski town bookstore with a French bulldog 'Staff Pup'
- An Oil Giant’s Wall Street Fall: The World is Sending the Industry Signals, but is Exxon Listening?
- RHONJ Fans Won't Believe the Text Andy Cohen Got From Bo Dietl After Luis Ruelas Reunion Drama
- Paying for Extreme Weather: Wildfire, Hurricanes, Floods and Droughts Quadrupled in Cost Since 1980
- Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time
- Warming Trends: Heating Up the Summer Olympics, Seeing Earth in 3-D and Methane Emissions From ‘Tree Farts’
Ranking
- The Daily Money: Spending more on holiday travel?
- Analysts Worried the Pandemic Would Stifle Climate Action from Banks. It Did the Opposite.
- Rally car driver and DC Shoes co-founder Ken Block dies in a snowmobile accident
- Today's Al Roker Reflects on Health Scares in Emotional Father's Day Tribute
- A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish
- 2 dead, 5 hurt during Texas party shooting, police say
- Q&A: The Sierra Club Embraces Environmental Justice, Forcing a Difficult Internal Reckoning
- The precarity of the H-1B work visa
Recommendation
Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
New nation, new ideas: A study finds immigrants out-innovate native-born Americans
Indiana deputy dies after being attacked by inmate during failed escape
Powerball jackpot now 9th largest in history
Highlights from Trump’s interview with Time magazine
Police Officer Catches Suspected Kidnapper After Chance Encounter at Traffic Stop
Tatcha's Rare Sitewide Sale Is Here: Shop Amazing Deals on The Dewy Skin Cream, Silk Serum & More
England will ban single-use plastic plates and cutlery for environmental reasons
Like
- Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
- Belarusian Victoria Azarenka says it was unfair to be booed at Wimbledon after match with Ukrainian Elina Svitolina
- Air Pollution From Raising Livestock Accounts for Most of the 16,000 US Deaths Each Year Tied to Food Production, Study Finds