Every S&P 500 Drawdown Since 1950: A Catalog of 26 Episodes by Depth, Duration, Recovery, and Macro Regime
Research · Equity Markets · Updated May 2026
A reproducible inventory of every S&P 500 decline of 10% or more between January 1950 and May 2026 — cross-referenced against four macroeconomic regime indicators: yield curve inversion, real Fed Funds rate, high-yield credit spreads, and NBER recession dates.
Of the 11 S&P 500 bear markets observed since 1950, 10 were preceded — within a 24-month window — by at least one of three classical macro stress signals: a yield curve inversion, a tight real Fed Funds rate, or a sharp high-yield credit spread widening.
TL;DR — Five facts the catalog establishes
- 26 drawdowns of 10% or more in the S&P 500 price index between January 1950 and May 2026 — a rate of roughly one every three years.
- 11 of those were bear markets (decline ≥20%). The median bear market lasted 746 days from peak to recovery, the median pullback (10–15%) only 217 days.
- 10 of 11 bear markets were preceded by at least one of three classical macro stress signals — yield curve inversion, real Fed Funds rate at or above +1.5%, or a high-yield credit spread widening of at least 200 basis points — within the prior 24 months.
- The single exception is the 1957 recession bear (peak August 1956, trough October 1957, −21.5%): no inversion, real Fed Funds below the +1.5% threshold at peak, no observable high-yield credit data, NBER recession arrived 12 months after peak.
- Recovery time scales with depth. Median peak-to-recovery is 217 days for pullbacks (10–15%), 705 days for bear markets (20–30%), and 1,595 days — over four years — for severe bear markets ≥30%.
What the catalog shows
Between January 1950 and May 2026, the S&P 500 price index recorded 26 distinct drawdowns of 10% or more from a closing all-time high. The deepest was the 56.8% decline that began on 9 October 2007 and bottomed on 9 March 2009. The shortest was Volmageddon — the 10.2% decline that ran from 26 January to 8 February 2018, a 13-day event tied to the implosion of short-volatility products. The longest, measured peak to full nominal recovery, was the 1973–1974 stagflation bear: 7.5 years from the January 1973 peak to the July 1980 reclamation of that level.
Each episode in the catalog is defined the same way. A drawdown begins on the closing date of a new all-time high. It ends on the closing date of the next new all-time high. If the maximum decline inside that window reached at least 10%, the window is counted as a drawdown episode. The minimum point inside the window is the trough; the recovery date is the close at which the prior all-time high was reclaimed for the first time. This algorithm is reproducible from the underlying daily price series, which is published as an open-access CSV alongside this study.
Context box — three caveats this catalog acknowledges from the outset
- All values are nominal. The S&P 500 price index used here excludes dividends and is not adjusted for inflation. The 1973–74 bear took 7.5 years to recover in nominal terms — but in real terms, the index did not reclaim its January 1973 peak until 1992. Total-return drawdowns are systematically shallower than price-index drawdowns by roughly 1 to 4 percentage points depending on dividend yield in the period.
- The three macro signals are not independent. Yield curve inversions, sharp rises in real Fed Funds, and high-yield credit spread blow-outs are all manifestations of the same underlying tightening-and-overextension dynamic. The value of this catalog is documentary — a structured record of which signals preceded which drawdown — not the discovery of three separate leading indicators.
- Signal observability is constrained by data history. The Fed Funds rate series begins in July 1954; the T-bill / long-bond yield curve in 1962; the ICE BofA US High Yield index in December 1996. For drawdowns before those start dates, the corresponding signal is marked unobservable rather than treated as absent. Three of the 26 episodes (Korean War 1950, the 1953 pre-recession decline, and the 1953 dataset gap) have no contemporaneous Fed Funds reading and are flagged accordingly in the catalog table.
With those caveats stated, the rest of this page presents three things: a description of how drawdowns are distributed in depth and duration, a tabulation of which macro signals appeared before each drawdown, and an explicit accounting of the cases where the signals diverged from drawdowns in both directions — bear markets without warning signs, and warning signs without bear markets.
How deep, how long: the shape of every decline
The 26 drawdowns are not uniformly distributed. Eleven of them — slightly under half — were pullbacks of 10 to 15%, the kind of decline that resolves in months and barely registers in popular memory. Four were corrections of 15 to 20%. Five were bear markets of 20 to 30%. Six were severe bear markets of 30% or more, including the three deepest: the global financial crisis (−56.8%), the dotcom bust (−49.1%), and the 1973–74 stagflation episode (−48.2%). Each of these episodes is situated in the macro regime it belonged to in the financial-crisis timeline.
Recovery time tracks depth with remarkable regularity.
| Depth bucket | Episodes | Median peak-to-trough | Median trough-to-recovery | Median peak-to-recovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pullback (−10% to −15%) | 11 | 113 days | 94 days | 217 days |
| Correction (−15% to −20%) | 4 | 67.5 days | 102 days | 170.5 days |
| Bear market (−20% to −30%) | 5 | 282 days | 337 days | 705 days |
| Severe bear (≥30%) | 6 | 530 days | 1,065 days | 1,595 days |
Source: Eco3min calculations from S&P 500 daily close, Yahoo Finance ticker ^GSPC. 1950–2026. n = 26 closed episodes.
The asymmetry is the result that matters: a pullback is over in roughly seven months on average; a bear market exceeding 30% takes more than four years to fully recover on a nominal price basis. The correction bucket runs slightly shorter than pullbacks because the four episodes it contains were resolved by sharp policy or geopolitical reversals — the Gulf War decline of 1990 (212 days), the LTCM/Russia event of 1998 (129 days), the Q4 2018 tightening tantrum (215 days), and the 2025 tariff shock (128 days).
The single longest recovery in the dataset is the 1973–74 bear at 2,744 days. The second longest is the dotcom bust at 2,623 days. The third is the global financial crisis at 1,997 days. The clustering at the top is consistent with what total-return studies of the same period report: the three deepest bears are the three slowest recoveries, and the gap between them and everything else is large.
The macro pattern: 10 of 11 bear markets had warning signs
For each drawdown the catalog records four binary indicators, all defined relative to the peak date:
- Yield curve inversion: did either the 10-year minus 3-month or the 10-year minus 2-year spread cross below zero at any point in the 24 months preceding the peak? Convention follows Estrella and Mishkin (1998) and the New York Fed recession probability model.
- Real Fed Funds tight at peak: was the effective Fed Funds rate minus year-on-year CPI at or above +1.5% at the peak month? The 1.5% threshold approximates the post-1954 distribution median; the convention follows Reinhart and Sbrancia (2011) on real-rate regimes.
- High-yield credit spread blow-out: did the ICE BofA US High Yield index option-adjusted spread (FRED series BAMLH0A0HYM2) rise by at least 200 basis points from its trailing 12-month trough by or within six months of the peak? Series begins December 1996; flagged unobservable before that.
- NBER recession in window: did a recession dated by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee start within 12 months after the peak, or overlap the drawdown window?
The first three are the “macro stress signals” referenced in the hook. The fourth is included as context — recessions are not market-leading indicators, since they are dated retrospectively by the NBER and the announcement typically arrives many months after the trough of the equity drawdown.
| Signal | Hit rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| At least one signal observed | 10 / 11 | Only 1957 recession bear (peak Aug 1956) had none. |
| Yield curve inverted in 24m before peak | 8 / 11 | Missing: Kennedy Slide 1961, Black Monday 1987, 1957 bear. |
| Real Fed Funds ≥ +1.5% at peak | 6 / 11 | Below threshold: GFC, 1969–70, 2020 COVID, 2022, 1957 bear. |
| High-yield credit widened ≥200bp | 4 / 4 observable | Series begins Dec 1996; pre-1997 bears unobservable. |
| NBER recession within 12m of peak | 7 / 11 | Non-recession bears: Kennedy Slide, 1966 Credit Crunch, Black Monday, 2022 bear. |
Source: Eco3min catalog. Signal definitions in methodology section.
The 10-of-11 figure is the headline number. Read at face value, every bear market since 1956 except the late-1950s recession bear was preceded by at least one classical macro stress signal within the prior 24 months. Across all 26 drawdowns ≥10%, 20 of the 24 with at least one observable signal were preceded by at least one — meaning the pattern extends, though less cleanly, to smaller declines as well.
This is the result that lets observers say things like “macro signals tend to flash before equity drawdowns.” The catalog confirms that the descriptive statement is true. What it does not establish — and the next section is dedicated to why — is that the signals constitute a predictive edge.
Why this is not a predictive edge
There are four reasons the 10-of-11 figure does not translate into a trading or allocation signal.
First, the three signals are not independent. Yield curve inversions, sharp rises in real Fed Funds, and high-yield credit spread widening are all expressions of the same underlying business cycle dynamic: a Fed tightening cycle in a late-expansion economy where credit risk premiums begin to reprice. Counting them as three separate signals overstates the information content. A more honest summary is that 10 of 11 bear markets occurred during or after a Fed tightening cycle that ended badly — which is closer to a near-tautology than a discovery, because the Fed only tightens when it believes the economy is overheating, and overheating cycles end in recessions, and recessions compress earnings.
Second, the unconditional base rate of having a signal in any 24-month window is high. Since 1965, yield curve inversions alone have occurred in roughly half of all rolling 24-month windows. Add real-rate spikes and credit blow-outs and the base rate climbs further. A finding of “10 of 11 bear markets had a signal” against a backdrop of “more than half of all 24-month windows had a signal” is consistent with the signals being descriptive of the macro environment rather than predictive of equity returns. This is the single most important qualification in the dataset, and it is the reason this study is framed as a catalog and not as an inference.
Third, signals produce false positives. The yield curve inverted briefly in 1966 with no recession and a 22% drawdown that was already underway. It inverted briefly in 1989 with no recession and a 10% mini-correction. It inverted briefly in 1998 during the LTCM crisis but the bear market did not arrive until 2000. Multiple inversions since 2000 have preceded mild drawdowns or none at all. A signal that fires in advance of every bear market except one, but also fires many times in advance of nothing, is a signal with high recall and low precision — useful for narrative, not for portfolio construction. Our chronicle of historical crises gathers these episodes.
Fourth, n is small. Eleven bear markets in 76 years is not a sample on which to base statistical claims. Excluding 1957, the conditional probability of a macro signal preceding a bear market is 10 of 10 — but the standard error on a 100% point estimate with n=10 is not informative in any meaningful sense. The Estrella and Hardouvelis (1991) framing — that yield curve inversions are associated with subsequent recessions across many countries and periods — is more robust because it draws on a much larger sample. The 10-of-11 figure in this catalog is consistent with that larger literature, but it is the larger literature, not this catalog, that does the inferential work.
The point of stating these qualifications explicitly is not to dismiss the dataset. It is to make the dataset useful for the kind of work where it is genuinely informative: as a reference for “what happened” rather than “what will happen.” A market historian comparing the Volcker bear to the 2022 tightening bear can read both rows of the catalog side by side. An analyst writing about credit-led equity peaks can use the four post-1996 episodes as a structured reference. A journalist comparing the durations of bear markets can cite the median peak-to-recovery times. None of these uses requires the catalog to be predictive.
False negatives and false positives
The catalog contains three categories of edge case that deserve their own accounting.
The one bear market without any signal: 1957
The 1957 recession bear is the only bear market in the catalog where none of the three signals fired. The S&P 500 peaked at 49.64 on 2 August 1956 and bottomed at 38.98 on 22 October 1957, a decline of 21.47%. At the August 1956 peak, real Fed Funds stood at approximately 1.0% — below the 1.5% threshold used in the catalog. The yield curve did not invert in the prior 24 months. The high-yield credit spread series did not exist. An NBER recession began in August 1957, but its onset was 12 months after the equity peak and is captured by the NBER column, not by the three forward-looking signals.
Two observations are worth recording. The first is that 1957 illustrates the difference between a signal with a low threshold and one with a moderate threshold: had the real Fed Funds threshold been set at 1.0% rather than 1.5%, 1957 would have registered. The second is that the Fed Funds series itself begins in July 1954, so the 1956 reading is among the earliest observations available — a reminder that pre-1960s episodes operate at the edge of the signal-construction dataset.
Bear markets with thin signal coverage: Kennedy Slide and Black Monday
Two bear markets in the catalog register a signal but only barely.
The Kennedy Slide peaked on 12 December 1961 at 72.64 and bottomed on 26 June 1962 at 52.32, a 27.97% decline with no NBER recession and no yield curve inversion. The single signal that fires is real Fed Funds at exactly 1.5% — at the threshold. The episode is conventionally read as a valuation reset in growth stocks combined with the Kennedy administration’s confrontation with US Steel over price hikes; it is the catalog’s clearest case of a bear market that does not fit a tightening-into-recession narrative.
The Black Monday 1987 bear peaked at 336.77 on 25 August 1987 and bottomed at 223.92 on 4 December 1987 after the 19 October crash. Real Fed Funds at peak stood at approximately 3.1%, well above the 1.5% threshold — but this was a residual elevation from the Volcker disinflation era rather than the signature of a fresh tightening cycle. No yield curve inversion. No NBER recession. The 1987 crash is widely attributed in the academic literature to the interaction between portfolio insurance and market microstructure during a period of rising rates, and it is the clearest case of a severe drawdown driven by trading dynamics rather than a macroeconomic regime change.
False positives: inversions without bear markets
The yield curve has inverted multiple times in episodes that did not produce a bear market or that produced a more modest decline.
- 1966: brief inversion during the Credit Crunch of 1966; no NBER recession; the equity decline reached −22% and is recorded in the catalog as a bear, but the macro regime did not deliver the recession that the inversion typically anticipates.
- 1989: brief T10Y2Y inversion in May–October 1989; the resulting mini-correction was only −10.2%; the recession associated with this inversion arrived in mid-1990 but with the equity drawdown timed more tightly to the August 1990 Gulf War shock than to the inversion itself.
- 1998: brief inversion during the LTCM/Russia crisis; the resulting correction was −19.3%, not a bear market; the eventual bear market arrived in March 2000 after the curve had re-inverted and the Fed had completed a new tightening cycle.
Outside the catalog, the yield curve also inverted in 2019 ahead of COVID — but the COVID drawdown was an exogenous shock, not the recession the 2019 inversion would have signalled in the absence of the pandemic. This is a case where the signal was present and a major drawdown followed, but the causal chain conventionally implied by the signal did not run.
Sensitivity: depth thresholds and signal windows
Two methodological choices drive the headline numbers: the depth threshold used to define a “drawdown,” and the look-back window used to determine whether a signal “preceded” the peak. Both are reported at multiple values below.
| Threshold | Episodes | Median depth | Median peak-to-recovery |
|---|---|---|---|
| ≥10% | 26 | −19.6% | 423.5 days |
| ≥15% | 15 | −27.1% | 701 days |
| ≥20% | 11 | −33.5% | 746 days |
| ≥30% | 6 | −42.1% | 1,595 days |
| ≥40% | 3 | −49.1% | 2,623 days |
Source: Eco3min catalog. Closed episodes only. n decreases with threshold.
The threshold matters most at the −15% to −20% boundary. Of the 26 episodes in the catalog, 11 fall in the narrow band between −10% and −15% — pullbacks that resolve in months and rarely figure in popular discussion of “crashes.” Raising the threshold to −15% halves the count to 15. Raising it to the conventional bear-market line of −20% leaves 11 episodes. Raising it to −30% leaves the six episodes that take an average of more than four years to recover.
The look-back window for the signal indicators is set at 24 months following the Estrella and Mishkin (1998) convention. Tightening the window to 12 months excludes the 1973–74 stagflation bear from the “yield curve preceded” count: the T10Y3M inversion that conventionally accompanies that episode is dated to mid-1973, which is approximately five months after the January 1973 equity peak rather than before it. (A brief inversion in late 1972 falls inside a 12-month look-back, so this exclusion depends on whether one counts the 1972 episode as a meaningful signal.) Lengthening the window beyond 24 months adds no further cases.
The full catalog — 26 episodes
Every S&P 500 drawdown of 10% or more between January 1950 and May 2026, in chronological order, with the four macro indicators recorded for each. A dot (•) indicates the signal was present; a dash (–) that it was not; “n/a” that the data series did not yet exist. The full machine-readable CSV is available for download at the foot of this page.
| # | Episode | Peak | Trough | Recovery | Depth | P→R days | YC inv. | Real rates | HY credit | NBER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Korean War shock | 1950-06-12 | 1950-07-17 | 1950-09-22 | −14.0% | 102 | n/a | n/a | n/a | – |
| 2 | 1953 pre-recession decline | 1953-01-05 | 1953-09-14 | 1954-03-11 | −14.8% | 430 | n/a | n/a | n/a | • |
| 3 | Eisenhower heart attack | 1955-09-23 | 1955-10-11 | 1955-11-14 | −10.6% | 52 | – | • | n/a | – |
| 4 | 1957 recession bear | 1956-08-02 | 1957-10-22 | 1958-09-24 | −21.5% | 783 | – | – | n/a | • |
| 5 | 1959–60 recession bear | 1959-08-03 | 1960-10-25 | 1961-01-27 | −14.0% | 543 | • | • | n/a | • |
| 6 | Kennedy Slide | 1961-12-12 | 1962-06-26 | 1963-09-03 | −28.0% | 630 | – | • | n/a | – |
| 7 | Credit Crunch of 1966 | 1966-02-09 | 1966-10-07 | 1967-05-04 | −22.2% | 449 | • | • | n/a | – |
| 8 | 1967–68 correction | 1967-09-25 | 1968-03-05 | 1968-04-29 | −10.1% | 217 | – | – | n/a | – |
| 9 | 1969–70 recession bear | 1968-11-29 | 1970-05-26 | 1972-03-06 | −36.1% | 1,193 | • | – | n/a | • |
| 10 | Stagflation bear (1973–74) | 1973-01-11 | 1974-10-03 | 1980-07-17 | −48.2% | 2,744 | • | • | n/a | • |
| 11 | Volcker disinflation bear | 1980-11-28 | 1982-08-12 | 1982-11-03 | −27.1% | 705 | • | • | n/a | • |
| 12 | 1984 mid-cycle correction | 1983-10-10 | 1984-07-24 | 1985-01-21 | −14.4% | 469 | – | • | n/a | – |
| 13 | Black Monday 1987 | 1987-08-25 | 1987-12-04 | 1989-07-26 | −33.5% | 701 | – | • | n/a | – |
| 14 | 1989 mini-correction | 1989-10-09 | 1990-01-30 | 1990-05-29 | −10.2% | 232 | • | • | n/a | – |
| 15 | Gulf War / 1990 recession | 1990-07-16 | 1990-10-11 | 1991-02-13 | −19.9% | 212 | • | • | n/a | • |
| 16 | Asian financial crisis pullback | 1997-10-07 | 1997-10-27 | 1997-12-05 | −10.8% | 59 | – | • | – | – |
| 17 | LTCM / Russia crisis | 1998-07-17 | 1998-08-31 | 1998-11-23 | −19.3% | 129 | – | • | • | – |
| 18 | Late-1999 tech correction | 1999-07-16 | 1999-10-15 | 1999-11-16 | −12.1% | 123 | – | • | – | – |
| 19 | Dotcom bust | 2000-03-24 | 2002-10-09 | 2007-05-30 | −49.1% | 2,623 | • | • | • | • |
| 20 | Global Financial Crisis | 2007-10-09 | 2009-03-09 | 2013-03-28 | −56.8% | 1,997 | • | – | • | • |
| 21 | 2015–16 energy / EM crisis | 2015-05-21 | 2016-02-11 | 2016-07-11 | −14.2% | 417 | – | – | • | – |
| 22 | Volmageddon | 2018-01-26 | 2018-02-08 | 2018-08-24 | −10.2% | 210 | – | – | – | – |
| 23 | Q4 2018 tightening tantrum | 2018-09-20 | 2018-12-24 | 2019-04-23 | −19.8% | 215 | – | – | – | – |
| 24 | COVID-19 crash | 2020-02-19 | 2020-03-23 | 2020-08-18 | −33.9% | 181 | • | – | • | • |
| 25 | 2022 tightening bear | 2022-01-03 | 2022-10-12 | 2024-01-19 | −25.4% | 746 | • | – | • | – |
| 26 | 2025 tariff shock | 2025-02-19 | 2025-04-08 | 2025-06-27 | −18.9% | 128 | – | • | – | – |
Source: Eco3min. Underlying price data: Yahoo Finance ticker ^GSPC. Macro indicators sourced from FRED series FEDFUNDS, CPIAUCSL, T10Y3M, T10Y2Y, BAMLH0A0HYM2, plus NBER recession dates. Bear markets (≥20%) shaded by depth bucket in the downloadable CSV.
Methodology and data
Drawdown identification algorithm
Let P(t) be the closing level of the S&P 500 on trading day t. Define the running peak M(t) = max(P(s)) for s ≤ t. The drawdown at t is DD(t) = P(t)/M(t) − 1. An “episode” is the time interval between two consecutive new all-time highs — i.e. between two distinct dates on which M(t) increases. An episode is recorded as a drawdown if min(DD(t)) inside the interval is at most −10%. The peak date is the start of the episode, the trough date is the argmin of DD(t) inside the episode, and the recovery date is the end of the episode.
The algorithm produces 26 episodes between 1 January 1950 and 8 May 2026. It uses closing prices, not intraday. Episodes that began but have not yet reached a new all-time high by the end of the sample are excluded as open episodes. As of the data cutoff (8 May 2026), all 26 episodes in the catalog are closed.
Macro signal definitions
Yield curve. The signal fires if either the 10-year Treasury minus 3-month Treasury bill (FRED: T10Y3M) or the 10-year minus 2-year (T10Y2Y) was negative on any trading day within 24 months before the equity peak. T10Y3M is available from 1982 on FRED; for earlier episodes, the proxy is the 10-year constant-maturity yield (DGS10 or, before that, the long-term government bond yield from LTGOVTBD) minus the 3-month T-bill rate (TB3MS). This is the conventional pre-1980s reconstruction used by the New York Fed’s recession probability series.
Real Fed Funds. Computed as effective Fed Funds rate (FRED: FEDFUNDS, monthly average) minus year-on-year headline CPI inflation (CPIAUCSL). Threshold +1.5% is approximately the median of the post-1954 distribution and aligns with the convention used by Reinhart and Sbrancia (2011) for distinguishing positive from negative real-rate regimes.
High-yield credit. The signal fires if the ICE BofA US High Yield index option-adjusted spread (FRED: BAMLH0A0HYM2) rose by at least 200 basis points from its trailing 12-month minimum by or within six months after the equity peak. The series is daily from 31 December 1996. Pre-1997 drawdowns are flagged unobservable, not absent.
NBER recession. A recession is “in the window” if its NBER-dated start month fell within 12 months after the equity peak, or if its peak-to-trough span overlapped the equity drawdown window. NBER dates are taken from the Business Cycle Dating Committee directly and not back-revised.
Limitations
- Nominal price index. Drawdowns and recoveries are computed on the S&P 500 price index, excluding dividends and not adjusted for inflation. Total-return drawdowns are typically 1 to 4 percentage points shallower depending on dividend yield in the period; real-terms recovery dates can be many years later than nominal-terms dates, especially in the 1973–74 episode.
- Pre-1957 S&P 500. Yahoo Finance ^GSPC daily data begins 30 December 1927 but the “S&P 500” as a 500-constituent index dates from March 1957. Pre-1957 values are S&P’s predecessor 90-stock composite, harmonised by S&P/Yahoo into a single continuous series. This is the standard public convention but does not match what investors saw in real time before 1957.
- Signal observability. Of the 26 drawdowns, four have at least one signal unobservable (the three pre-1955 episodes lacking Fed Funds data, plus structural variation in pre-1962 yield curve construction). Pre-1996 episodes are unobservable on high-yield credit. The catalog flags every unobservable cell rather than imputing.
- Signals are correlated. The three signals are not independent indicators of distinct phenomena. They are co-symptoms of a Fed-led tightening cycle in a late-expansion economy. Counting “any signal” is therefore not the same as counting three orthogonal warnings.
- Sample size. Eleven bear markets is a small n. No statistical significance claim is made anywhere on this page. The catalog is descriptive, not inferential.
Data download
The full catalog is available as a CSV file under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Required citation: “Eco3min, ‘Every S&P 500 Drawdown Since 1950’, eco3min.fr, 2026.” The CSV contains all 22 columns including raw indicator values, signal flags, observability flags, and primary narrative classification.
Frequently asked questions
How many bear markets has the S&P 500 had since 1950?
Eleven, where a bear market is defined as a peak-to-trough decline of at least 20% on the closing price index. The most recent is the 2022 tightening bear, which peaked at 4,796.56 on 3 January 2022 and bottomed at 3,577.03 on 12 October 2022, a decline of 25.4%, with nominal recovery on 19 January 2024.
What was the deepest S&P 500 drawdown since 1950?
The global financial crisis of 2007 to 2009, at −56.78% from peak (9 October 2007) to trough (9 March 2009). The dotcom bust was the second deepest at −49.15%; the 1973–74 stagflation bear the third at −48.20%.
How long does it take to recover from a bear market?
The median peak-to-recovery time for bear markets between 20% and 30% is 705 days, or roughly 23 months. For severe bear markets of 30% or more, the median is 1,595 days, or about four years and four months. The single longest recovery in the catalog is the 1973–74 bear at 2,744 days (7.5 years).
Does a yield curve inversion always precede a bear market?
No. Of the 11 bear markets in the catalog, the yield curve inverted in the 24 months prior to the peak in 8 of them. The three exceptions are the 1957 recession bear, the Kennedy Slide of 1961–62, and the 1987 Black Monday bear. Conversely, the yield curve has inverted in several episodes that did not produce a bear market — notably in 1966, 1989, and briefly in 1998 — so the relationship is asymmetric in both directions.
Is this a predictive model?
No. This is a descriptive catalog, not a forecasting model. The three macro signals are not independent and produce both false negatives and false positives. The catalog documents which signals were present before each drawdown; it makes no claim about how to use those signals to anticipate future drawdowns. For predictive work, the New York Fed’s yield-curve recession probability model is the conventional reference.
Why start in 1950 rather than 1928 or 1900?
1950 is the conventional starting point for post-war US equity research (Damodaran, Shiller). Earlier samples include the 1929–32 crash, which is structurally distinct: no contemporaneous Federal Reserve Funds rate, no continuous T-bill regime, the gold standard still binding, and an entirely different financial-market plumbing. Including pre-1950 episodes in the same table without those caveats would over-state comparability.
Why does the catalog use nominal prices rather than total return or real terms?
The price index is the most widely cited benchmark in public references to bear markets and drawdowns, and it is what allows direct comparison with the figures reported by news outlets, brokers, and historical archives. Total-return drawdowns are typically 1 to 4 percentage points shallower; real-terms recovery dates can be many years later, particularly for the 1973–74 episode (real-terms recovery in 1992 versus nominal in 1980). Both adjustments are noted in the limitations section.
Where can I download the data?
The full catalog is published as an open CSV file under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, available at this link. Required citation: “Eco3min, ‘Every S&P 500 Drawdown Since 1950’, eco3min.fr, 2026.”
Cite this study
Eco3min (2026). Every S&P 500 Drawdown Since 1950: A Catalog of 26 Episodes by Depth, Duration, Recovery, and Macro Regime. Eco3min Research. eco3min.fr/en/every-sp500-crash-since-1950
This research and the associated dataset are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Quotation and reproduction are permitted with attribution.
Last updated — 2 June 2026
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