MANY COMMENTATORS worry about the stock market in October, a month associated with the crashes of 1929 and 1987. But I now pay more attention to March—especially March 10.
As an observer of the stock market since 1980, I stumbled upon an odd coincidence. Major financial events this century, like stock market peaks and troughs, have centered on the month of March. Here are four examples:
March 10, 2000: The Nasdaq peaked at 5048. Between 1995 and that peak, the Nasdaq rose 400%. The dot-com bubble then burst and the Nasdaq didn’t return to its 2000 peak until 2015.
March 9, 2009: The market bottomed after 2008’s Great Financial Crisis. From October 2007 to March 2009, the S&P 500 declined 57%.
March 23, 2020: The stock market bottomed amid the pandemic panic selling. Fiscal and monetary stimulus went into overdrive, triggering a huge market rally.
March 10, 2023: Silicon Valley Bank became the second biggest U.S. bank failure ever.
What is it about March and the financial markets? I was hoping for help from ChatGPT, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask it the question. Any thoughts, fellow humans?