On a year to year basis the SPX rallied about 13 %, nevertheless we saw lots of ups and downs and I think bulls and bears alike were satisfied at some point during the year.
The year started as it usually does - with a top in January. Quite a nasty 10 % sell off into early February followed and bears were already celebrating the continuation of the bear market (including me... well... : )).
What actually happened though was quite the opposite. A slow and steady rise took the S&P 500 above 1200 in April - a 17 % 'correctionless' rally within less than three months!
But in May the bears stroke back:
It was May 6th 2.45 pm when the Dow Jones fell almost 1000 points and all that within just a few minutes (only to recover most of the losses by eod...). It was the biggest one-day point decline on an intraday basis in history (known as the 'Flash Crash'):
After this event the SPX bounced around, with a downward bias though, so, by the end of Q2 the SPX was approaching the SPX 1000 level and it looked like this time the bears were right and the bear market had continued.
They were wrong again though...
