Market statistics
How often the S&P 500 sets a record high — and what happened next
About one session in seventeen has closed at an all-time high, and buying at one has not been the mistake it feels like: the year after a record close has averaged very slightly more than the year after an ordinary one, and finished positive slightly more often.
1,444 record closes · data through 28 Aug 2026
1928–2026
- Record closes
- 1,444
- 5.8% of all sessions
- Years with a record
- 48 of 99
- busiest was 1995, with 77
- Median gap
- 3 days
- average 25 days
- Longest drought
- 25 years
- from 16 Sep 1929
- Last record
- 13 Aug 2026
- 15 days ago · -1.12% from it
| Horizon | From a record: average | From a record: median | From a record: positive | From any day: average | From any day: positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month1,441 obs | +0.39% | +0.71% | 60.1% | +0.67% | 60.3% |
| 3 months1,439 obs | +1.64% | +2.46% | 69.0% | +2.01% | 64.0% |
| 6 months1,421 obs | +3.83% | +5.26% | 72.7% | +3.98% | 67.2% |
| 1 year1,397 obs | +8.24% | +9.81% | 70.9% | +8.20% | 69.8% |
| Distance from the high | Sessions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| At a record high | 1,462 | 5.9% |
| Within 1% of one | 2,478 | 10.0% |
| 1% to 5% below | 5,001 | 20.2% |
| 5% to 10% below | 2,949 | 11.9% |
| 10% to 20% below | 3,856 | 15.6% |
| More than 20% below | 9,035 | 36.5% |
| From | To | Years | Sessions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sep 1929 | 22 Sep 1954 | 25.0 | 6,249 |
| 11 Jan 1973 | 17 Jul 1980 | 7.5 | 1,898 |
| 24 Mar 2000 | 30 May 2007 | 7.2 | 1,803 |
| 9 Oct 2007 | 28 Mar 2013 | 5.5 | 1,376 |
| 29 Nov 1968 | 6 Mar 1972 | 3.3 | 820 |
| 2 Aug 1956 | 24 Sep 1958 | 2.1 | 540 |
| 3 Jan 2022 | 19 Jan 2024 | 2.0 | 513 |
| 28 Nov 1980 | 3 Nov 1982 | 1.9 | 488 |
| 25 Aug 1987 | 26 Jul 1989 | 1.9 | 485 |
| 12 Dec 1961 | 3 Sep 1963 | 1.7 | 434 |
| Year | Records | Sessions | Share of the year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 27 | 165 | 16.4% |
| 2025 | 39 | 250 | 15.6% |
| 2024 | 57 | 252 | 22.6% |
| 2023 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 2022 | 1 | 251 | 0.4% |
| 2021 | 70 | 252 | 27.8% |
| 2020 | 33 | 253 | 13.0% |
| 2019 | 35 | 252 | 13.9% |
| 2018 | 19 | 251 | 7.6% |
| 2017 | 62 | 251 | 24.7% |
| 2016 | 18 | 252 | 7.1% |
| 2015 | 10 | 252 | 4.0% |
| 2014 | 53 | 252 | 21.0% |
| 2013 | 45 | 252 | 17.9% |
| 2012 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 2011 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2010 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2009 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2008 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 2007 | 9 | 251 | 3.6% |
| 2006 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 2005 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2004 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2003 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2002 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 2001 | 0 | 248 | — |
| 2000 | 4 | 252 | 1.6% |
| 1999 | 35 | 252 | 13.9% |
| 1998 | 47 | 252 | 18.7% |
| 1997 | 45 | 253 | 17.8% |
| 1996 | 39 | 254 | 15.4% |
| 1995 | 77 | 252 | 30.6% |
| 1994 | 5 | 252 | 2.0% |
| 1993 | 16 | 253 | 6.3% |
| 1992 | 18 | 254 | 7.1% |
| 1991 | 22 | 253 | 8.7% |
| 1990 | 6 | 253 | 2.4% |
| 1989 | 13 | 252 | 5.2% |
| 1988 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1987 | 47 | 253 | 18.6% |
| 1986 | 31 | 253 | 12.3% |
| 1985 | 43 | 252 | 17.1% |
| 1984 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1983 | 29 | 253 | 11.5% |
| 1982 | 2 | 253 | 0.8% |
| 1981 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1980 | 24 | 253 | 9.5% |
| 1979 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1978 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1977 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1976 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1975 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1974 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1973 | 3 | 252 | 1.2% |
| 1972 | 32 | 251 | 12.7% |
| 1971 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1970 | 0 | 254 | — |
| 1969 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1968 | 33 | 226 | 14.6% |
| 1967 | 14 | 251 | 5.6% |
| 1966 | 9 | 252 | 3.6% |
| 1965 | 37 | 252 | 14.7% |
| 1964 | 62 | 253 | 24.5% |
| 1963 | 11 | 251 | 4.4% |
| 1962 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1961 | 39 | 250 | 15.6% |
| 1960 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1959 | 27 | 253 | 10.7% |
| 1958 | 22 | 252 | 8.7% |
| 1957 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1956 | 15 | 251 | 6.0% |
| 1955 | 41 | 252 | 16.3% |
| 1954 | 22 | 252 | 8.7% |
| 1953 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1952 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1951 | 0 | 249 | — |
| 1950 | 0 | 249 | — |
| 1949 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1948 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1947 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1946 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1945 | 0 | 246 | — |
| 1944 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1943 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1942 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1941 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1940 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1939 | 0 | 249 | — |
| 1938 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1937 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1936 | 0 | 253 | — |
| 1935 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1934 | 0 | 249 | — |
| 1933 | 0 | 242 | — |
| 1932 | 0 | 250 | — |
| 1931 | 0 | 252 | — |
| 1930 | 0 | 251 | — |
| 1929 | 43 | 249 | 17.3% |
| 1928 | 53 | 250 | 21.2% |
Price returns from daily closing levels. Index price returns exclude dividends. Full provenance, method and a citation line are in Sources and method below.
A record is a common event that feels like a rare one
There have been 1,444 record closes in 24,781 sessions — about one in 17 — and they arrived in 48 of 99 calendar years. The median gap between consecutive records is 3 days and the average is 25, which is the shape of the whole phenomenon in two numbers: records come in clusters separated by long droughts, so the typical gap is short and the average is dragged out by a handful of enormous ones.
The forward-return table is the reason this page exists. Over the year following a record close the index averaged +8.24% and finished higher 70.9% of the time; over the year following any session at all it averaged +8.20% and finished higher 69.8% of the time. Whatever a record high is, it has not been a signal to wait.
The reason that feels wrong is survivorship of memory. Two records in this record were followed by catastrophe — September 1929 and March 2000 — and both are famous. The other 1,442 are unmemorable, which is exactly the problem — a base rate assembled from the two instances you can name is not a base rate.
The distance bands underneath say the other half of it. The index has spent 52% of all sessions more than 10% below its previous high, and the longest single drought — 16 Sep 1929 to 22 Sep 1954 — ran 25 years. Records are ordinary, and so is spending years without one.
Questions people ask about this
- Is it a bad idea to buy at an all-time high?
- Not on this record. Measured over the following month, quarter, half-year and year, an entry at a record close has done about as well as an entry on a randomly chosen day, and has finished positive slightly more often. The intuition that a high is dangerous comes from the two occasions it was — 1929 and 2000 — which are memorable precisely because they are rare.
- Why does the index spend so little time at a high?
- Because records cluster. A market at a high tends to set several more within weeks, and then goes years without one: the gap between the 1929 peak and the next record ran to twenty-five years, and the gap after 2000 to seven. The median gap between consecutive records is a few days and the average is several weeks, which is the same fact stated twice.
- Would using intraday highs change these numbers?
- It would raise the count. Every figure here is built from closing levels, so an intraday high that the index gave back before the bell is not a record on this page. Closing levels are what the index is officially recorded at, and mixing the two conventions is how two sources end up disagreeing about how many records a year contained.
Sources and method
- Data
- Financial Modeling Prep — Daily adjusted closing levels and quotes, retrieved through Plutux's own data service.
- S&P Dow Jones Indices — Publisher and methodology owner of the S&P 500 index itself.
- How it was calculated
- A record is a close strictly above every close before it in the series, so the first bar is not one and a repeat of a previous high is not a new record. The distance bands count sessions by how far the close sat below the running high. Forward returns are measured in trading sessions — 21 for a month, 252 for a year — from a record close, and compared with the same horizons measured from every session for which that horizon exists, so the conditional figure and its baseline are drawn from the same window. Closing levels, price returns, dividends excluded.
- How often it changes
- Regenerated from the full daily history about once a year; the date it runs through is at the top of the page.
- Citing this page
Free to quote — please link rather than copy the table.
Plutux. "How often the S&P 500 sets a record high — and what happened next." Data through 28 Aug 2026. https://plutux.ai/resources/tools/stock-market-record-highs
Historical figures for information only — not investment advice, and not a forecast.
Related tools
- Historical drawdownsPeak, trough, depth, and how long it took to get back — for every decline of at least 10% in the record.
- Missing the best daysThe most-quoted statistic in retail investing, computed from the actual daily record, with the half that never gets quoted next to it.
- Streaks and base ratesThe odds of an up day, week, month, quarter and year in one table — plus the longest winning and losing runs on record.
Plutux is not an investment adviser. Market data and AI-generated analysis are for information and education only, not investment advice. Disclaimer