The S&P 500's Yearly Declines and Returns Since 2001

What We're Showing

This chart shows the S&P 500's maximum intra-year declines along with the final calendar-year return.

The data comes from Janus Henderson Investors, with TradingView data as of July 8th for 2025's figures.

Key Takeaways

• Despite the majority of years seeing a decline of 10% or more in the S&P 500, since 2001 there have only been six years with negative returns overall.
• Since 2001, the average calendar-year return for the S&P 500 is 7.6%.
• The average maximum intra-year decline is -16% for the S&P 500, and when years with outsized and extraneous events like the Dot-com bubble, global financial crisis, and COVID-19 are removed, the average falls to just -11%.