Market Issue

How much did the stock market actually lose in the Great Depression? The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 89% — $1,000 of Dow stocks became about $108, and it took 25 years for prices to climb back. But the headline number hides the real story: the crash took nearly three years, the rallies in between trapped buyers who thought the worst was over, and counting dividends changes the recovery from 25 years to about 15. This is the third post in our depression series. The overview laid out the five warning signs and the three reasons it might not happen; this post is the history — what the market actually did from 1929 to 1932, in numbers. All figures are current as of November 13, 2026, unless noted otherwise. The Short Answer: 89% — and What That Number Leaves Out From its peak on September 3, 1929, to its bottom on July 8, 1932, the Dow fell from 381.17 to 41.22 — a loss of 89%. That is a price-only number: it counts share prices and ignores dividends. A saver who held $1,000 of...

If the CAPE ratio is at 40 — nearly the highest in 145 years — is a crash coming? Sometimes it warns. Sometimes it cries wolf. And three of the worst crashes in history arrived with the CAPE looking perfectly ordinary. This briefing scores the ratio the way you would score any forecasting tool: every major market peak since the data begins, the CAPE reading at the time, and what actually happened next. No cherry-picking, no single crash as proof. All figures are as of November 12, 2026, unless noted otherwise. Where the CAPE stands right now The S&P 500's CAPE stood at 40.09 at the close on November 12, 2026 — the second-highest reading in the history of the series. The ratio divides the index's price by its average inflation-adjusted earnings over the past ten years. Its long-run mean is 17.45 and its median is 16.14, going back to 1871. The all-time high is 44.19, set in December 1999. The low is 4.78, from December 1920. It has read above 40 in every month since May 2026...

Did the stock market just get cheap again? No. The S&P 500's CAPE ratio slipped below 40 after the November selloff, but at about 39.9 it is still more than twice its long-run average — and the only other time it stayed above 39 was the dot-com peak. The ratio stood at 41.04 when markets closed on October 28. Then the index fell 4.36% on November 5, and by November 9 the CAPE had dropped to 39.85. That dip below 40 is the first daily reading under the mark since May — but it changes nothing about the message. It only shows how fast the gauge moves when prices do. So what did the S&P 500 actually return the last time its CAPE ratio was above 39? The answer splits in two: a strong final year for early buyers, and a lost decade for everyone. All figures are as of November 9–10, 2026, unless noted otherwise. What the CAPE ratio is — and where it stands now The CAPE divides the S&P 500's price by its average earnings over the past 10 years, adjusted for infla...