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Every stock market crash since 1928: how deep, how long and when it turned
Since 1928 the US stock market has fallen at least 20% twelve times, about every eight years. The median return to the old high took two years. The shortest took just under six months, the longest 25 years.
S&P 500: how far below its previous high
Twelve crashes of at least 20%
A crash is counted here from a closing high until that high is reached again. What happened in the big ones is in the course Stock market crashes in history. The 1929 crash is in a class of its own: down 86.2% and 25 years to get back, without dividends. The new high came in September 1954. Since then, no crash has taken longer than seven and a half years.
The falls of 1937–1942 and 1946–1949 are part of the 1929 crash, because the market had not reached the old high again.
| Period | Fall | Time down | Time to new high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 1929–Jun 1932 | −86.2% | 32 mo | 300 mo |
| Aug 1956–Oct 1957 | −21.5% | 15 mo | 26 mo |
| Dec 1961–Jun 1962 | −28.0% | 6 mo | 21 mo |
| Feb 1966–Oct 1966 | −22.2% | 8 mo | 15 mo |
| Nov 1968–May 1970 | −36.1% | 18 mo | 39 mo |
| Jan 1973–Oct 1974 | −48.2% | 21 mo | 90 mo |
| Nov 1980–Aug 1982 | −27.1% | 20 mo | 23 mo |
| Aug 1987–Dec 1987 | −33.5% | 3 mo | 23 mo |
| Mar 2000–Oct 2002 | −49.1% | 31 mo | 86 mo |
| Oct 2007–Mar 2009 | −56.8% | 17 mo | 66 mo |
| Feb 2020–Mar 2020 | −33.9% | 1 mo | 6 mo |
| Jan 2022–Oct 2022 | −25.4% | 9 mo | 25 mo |
How often does the stock market fall?
Smaller falls are common. Falls of at least 5% have happened 74 times in 99 years, falls of at least 30% seven times. A 30% crash is also counted in the rows for 5, 10 and 20%.
| Fall from the high | Count | Once every | Time to new high, median |
|---|---|---|---|
| at least 5% | 74 | 1.3 yrs | 3 mo |
| at least 10% | 26 | 3.8 yrs | 14 mo |
| at least 20% | 12 | 8.2 yrs | 25 mo |
| at least 30% | 7 | 14 yrs | 66 mo |
| at least 40% | 4 | 25 yrs | 88 mo |
| at least 50% | 2 | 49 yrs | 183 mo |
The first day at −20%
On the day the market first closed 20% below its high, the bottom was sometimes already there and sometimes far away. The median further fall was 9.0%, and four times it fell more than another 30%.
A year later the market was higher in 8 of 12 cases, three years later in 10 of 12 and five years later in 9 of 11. The 2022 crash has not reached five years yet.
| First day | Then fell a further | 1 year later | 3 years | 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 28, 1929 | −80.7% | −21% | −69% | −61% |
| Oct 21, 1957 | −0.4% | +31% | +37% | +40% |
| May 28, 1962 | −5.7% | +26% | +59% | +63% |
| Aug 29, 1966 | −1.8% | +25% | +28% | +34% |
| Jan 29, 1970 | −19.1% | +12% | +35% | −10% |
| Nov 27, 1973 | −34.9% | −27% | +7% | +0% |
| Feb 22, 1982 | −8.2% | +30% | +61% | +153% |
| Oct 19, 1987 | −0.4% | +23% | +39% | +85% |
| Mar 12, 2001 | −34.2% | −1% | −5% | +9% |
| Jul 9, 2008 | −45.6% | −29% | +6% | +33% |
| Mar 12, 2020 | −9.8% | +59% | +55% | +126% |
| Jun 13, 2022 | −4.6% | +17% | +59% | – |
The Stockholm market
Our history for OMX Stockholm 30 starts in November 2008, near the bottom of the financial crisis. Since then the index has fallen at least 20% five times. The time to a new high is counted without dividends, so with dividends it went faster.
| Period | Fall | Time down | Time to new high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2011–Sep 2011 | −26.9% | 8 mo | 25 mo |
| Apr 2015–Jun 2016 | −27.5% | 14 mo | 54 mo |
| Feb 2020–Mar 2020 | −32.0% | 1 mo | 9 mo |
| Jan 2022–Sep 2022 | −26.9% | 9 mo | 26 mo |
| Feb 2025–Apr 2025 | −21.2% | 1 mo | 8 mo |
Single companies fall further
An index is an average of many companies. 26 of the 30 largest companies in Stockholm have at some point fallen more than half, and 13 of them at least 70%. Even the best performers have done it: Hexagon fell 82% and Nibe 77%, yet since 2000 they have become worth 113 and 152 times as much.
Others have not come back. Ericsson fell 97.9% between 2000 and 2002 and, even with dividends, is 61% below January 2000. Work it out for a company and a start date with If I had invested.
| Company | Biggest fall | Back after | Whole period | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ericsson | −98% | Not yet | ×0.4 | |
| ABB | −95% | 6 yrs | ×6.1 | |
| Swedbank | −93% | 6 yrs | ×17.0 | |
| Boliden | −91% | 8 yrs | ×32.0 | |
| SEB | −87% | 8 yrs | ×15.9 | |
| Tele2 | −86% | 15 yrs | ×7.1 | |
| Hexagon | −82% | 3 yrs | ×112.7 | |
| Volvo | −79% | 8 yrs | ×23.0 | |
| Nibe | −77% | 6 yrs | ×152.0 | |
| Saab | −75% | 7 yrs | ×61.8 | |
| Telia | −75% | 13 yrs | ×2.3 | |
| Industrivärden | −73% | 6 yrs | ×14.9 | |
| Sandvik | −71% | 3 yrs | ×15.3 | |
| Investor | −69% | 4 yrs | ×31.7 | |
| Evolution | −69% | Not yet | ×48.4 | |
| Nordea | −66% | 6 yrs | ×6.1 | |
| Skanska | −65% | 4 yrs | ×13.0 | |
| Assa Abloy | −65% | 9 yrs | ×15.9 | |
| EQT | −64% | Not yet | ×3.7 | |
| H&M | −64% | Not yet | ×3.1 | |
| Alfa Laval | −64% | 3 yrs | ×37.5 | |
| Atlas Copco | −62% | 3 yrs | ×45.1 | |
| SKF | −62% | 3 yrs | ×12.0 | |
| AstraZeneca | −59% | 12 yrs | ×6.7 | |
| Addtech | −58% | 3 yrs | ×198.6 | |
| Handelsbanken | −57% | 3 yrs | ×19.7 | |
| Lifco | −49% | 5 mo | ×13.0 | |
| SCA | −48% | Not yet | ×2.2 | |
| Epiroc | −37% | 2 yrs | ×3.1 | |
| Essity | −28% | 3 yrs | ×1.5 | |
How we calculated
- Daily closing prices up to and including Nov 6, 2026.
- S&P 500 and OMX Stockholm 30 are counted without dividends. The companies are counted with dividends reinvested.
- A crash inside a bigger crash is not counted on its own. The 2008 crash runs from the 2007 high to the new high in 2013.
- The S&P 500 index started in 1957. The numbers before that come from its predecessor of 90 companies.
- The companies are the 30 in OMX Stockholm 30 today. Companies that went bankrupt or left the exchange are missing, so reality was harder than the table. EQT, Epiroc, Essity, Evolution, Lifco and SCA have shorter histories.
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