NEWSWEEK.COM 37
would be a pretty normal develop-
ment by historical standards. Between
1980 and the end of 2019, according to
Vanguard, there were 13 stock market
“corrections” (Wall Street jargon for de-
clines between 10 and 20 percent) and
eight bear markets (prices fall by 20 per-
cent or more for at least two months).
The typical bear lasts 10 months, with
average losses of nearly 36 percent.
“You have to be willing to take the
body blows and the punches to the
gut to earn the returns that stocks
offer,” DuQuesnay says. “The pain is
the price of the gains.”
Those gains, in the long run, are
typically far greater than other in-
vestments offer, and stocks are still
the only asset to handily beat infla-
tion over time. Since 1926, according
to Ibbotson Associates, large-com-
pany stocks have returned about 10
percent a year on average, compared
with just 5 percent for bonds and 3
percent for Treasury bills. A longer
view smooths out the big price dips
too: There’s never been a 15-year pe-
riod in which stocks have lost money.
In short, stocks are the only invest-
ment over the long term that offers
the growth potential you need to en-
sure your savings last a lifetime.The last week of February 2020,
which kicked off the stock market’s
recent turbulence, was the worst since
the ɿnancial crisis. But the losses
still weren’t as big for investors as
they were in 2008 or in the aftermath
of the 1 8 stock market crash.
The biggest weekly losses in
stock prices since 1976:OCT 5-11 2008 18.1%
OCT 18-24 1987 12.2
FEB 23-29 2020 11.4
APR 9-15 2000 10.5
SEPT 28-OCT 4 2008 9.3
OCT 11-17 1987 9.2
NOV 16-22 2008 8.3
NOTE: Week measured is from Monday
to Friday. Source: Morningstar DirectA Very Bad Week Indeed