Today marks the two-year anniversary of the COVID Crash low on March 23rd, 2020. After falling 34% from 2/19/20 to 3/23/20, the S&P has seen a gain of exactly 100% since then. Below is a chart showing the rolling 2-year price change in percentage terms for the S&P since index data begins in 1928. Remarkably, this has been the best two-year gain for the S&P since 1937!

As for two other major US indices, the NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2,000 have been on their strongest runs since the period coming out of the Global Financial Crisis.  Looking further back, though, the late 1990s saw much larger rallies in two-year spans for the NASDAQ, while the post-GFC era is the only comparable period for small caps.

Below we show the rolling 2-year percentage change for the eleven S&P 500 sectors.  As you can see, this two-year run stands out as one of the best for most sectors.  Energy’s run has blown any previous record out of the water as the sector has risen 224% since the COVID low two years ago.  Aside from Energy, the current two-year rallies for most sectors have been the largest since the couple of years coming out of the Financial Crisis or the 1990s for sectors like Technology and Health Care.  Click here if you would like to see Bespoke’s premium research.