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WHEN TO SET THE ALARM FOR AFTER A PARTY

With another trading year in the books, Bespoke Investment Group counted up some interesting stock market superlatives with an eye to what they might mean for future performance.

The research company noted the S&P 500's .SPX 57 record closing highs for the year means that the benchmark closed at a record on about 22% of 2024's trading days.

Going back to 1953 - the first full year of the 5-day trading week in its current form - there were only six other years with at least 50, with record closing highs. Bespoke pointed to 2021 as the most recent with 70 record closing highs, marking the second-highest ever.

Looking at years with the most all-time highs, the research firm points out that 2024's rally was only fractionally larger than the average/median rally for comparable years.

But Bespoke cautions that "the fun has to stop at some point."

Of the six prior years it cites, Bespoke notes that "the S&P 500 fell in the following year four times for a median decline of 3.48%."

Another statistic Bespoke includes is the S&P's failure to close below its 200 day moving average since Nov. 1 2023.

"While there have been plenty of longer streaks, that run is only the twelfth time since 1953 that the S&P 500 has gone a full calendar year above its 200-DMA," they write.

And 2024 was one of 36 years during which the S&P 500 did not suffer a +10% correction - defined as a pullback from its previous high without a 10% or greater rally in between - or didn't end down 10% for the year, as per Bespoke.

So should this partying make you nervous about a hangover?

Well, maybe or maybe not. Bespoke says that while at some point in the future there will be some kind of a correction, "a good year doesn't necessarily mean an imminent correction."

After correction free years, "it has taken an average of 17 months until the start of the next correction with the S&P 500 rising an average of nearly 36% in the interim."

But, within the average, "there are examples of the correction coming far sooner or almost immediately," according to Bespoke, citing "the 1953 correction and the bear markets that began in 1973 and 2022 which all essentially started right at the beginning of the new year."

(Sinéad Carew)

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