Tallying up the stock market damage

The stock market carnage has been fast and furious in October with wild market swings and plenty of volatility.

The sharp-eyed analysts at Bespoke Investment Group have pulled together some remarkable charts that tell the story.

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Let’s start with the Russell 3000, an index that tracks the performance of 3,000 of the largest traded stocks in the U.S. and 98% of all equity securities.

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Source: Bespoke Investment Group

It has taken a massive, multi-trillion dollar hit since late September, or as Bespoke explains:

Since the US stock market peaked on a closing basis back on September 20th, Russell 3,000 stocks have collectively lost roughly $3.5 trillion in market cap.  Breaking the losses down by market cap, the 50 largest stocks in the US have lost roughly $1.25 trillion in market cap, while the 2,000 smallest have lost $350 billion.”

Amazon

On an individual stock basis, Amazon (AMZN) has suffered the biggest nominal lost in market capitalization.

Its stock has fallen 27% over the past 12 months and has shed $195 billion since the last market peak in on September 29.

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Source: Bespoke Investment Group

Tech Sector

In fact, if you look at the biggest decliners in market value since September 29, four out of the top five are tech companies: Amazon, Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (FB).

Big money center banks like JPMorgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) have also taken hits to their market value.

Source: Bespoke Investment Group



Takeaway

It has been a real roller coaster ride for investors in recent weeks.

While the bull market that started in March of 2009 is a historic one, in my view, all stock rallies end at some point.

Whether we’ve reached that inflection point in late 2018 remains a burning question for investors, in my opinion.

Photo Credit: Patrick Gruban via Flickr Creative Commons