Two years ago today – March 9^th, 2009 – was an ugly, ugly day for investors. The stock market hurtled downward, only to close at a 12 year low. The Dow Jones lost 80 points, or 1.2%, to end at 6,547.05, its lowest point since April 15, 1997. The S&P 500 index lost almost 7 points or 1%, to end at 676.53, its lowest point since September 12, 1996. Since 2007, both had lost over 50% of their value. It really seemed like the end of the (financial) world.

Here we are, two years later, and things are rather different. That day marked the crisis low in terms of stock market prices, with March 10^th marking the beginning of what is now a 2 year old bull market in stocks (as well as most everything else not named Nat. Gas or the US Dollar).

You can see what the gains have looked like since the March 9^th, 2009 low to the right. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. We used cash market data in all cases.

Cotton, as we discussed earlier this week, is the clear winner since the crash, more than quadrupling in price in just two years; while Silver, Sugar, Copper, the Russell 2000, RBOB Gasoline, the Nasdaq, and Crude Oil have all bounced back with gains over 100%. Everywhere else, the growth is there, but prices still aren’t back to their old highs yet. Only Natural Gas and the Dollar Index are down since that fateful day, with the (orchestrated?) fall in the US Dollar no doubt to thank for a lot of the aforementioned gains.

The real question now is whether or not this growth is sustainable. Chaos in the Middle East, high oil prices, and a whole lot of volatility calls it all into question. Where will we be 2 years from now? Nobody knows for sure, but a good bet is we won’t be looking at gains in all but two markets…