#MARKETS & INVESTING
Since 1871 the US market has been through fifteen declines of at least 20%. Getting back to the previous peak takes 47 months at the median, with dividends reinvested and inflation stripped out. But the record does not belong to 1929: it belongs to 2000, at 153 months.
Published on September 2, 2026
The calculation runs on Robert J. Shiller's monthly S&P Composite series. In real total return — dividends reinvested, prices adjusted for inflation — fifteen episodes reach at least 20% below a peak. Recovering that peak takes 47 months at the median and 61 months on average. The same measure on nominal price alone, without dividends, records only thirteen episodes and gives a median of 65 months. The longest episode in real total return is not the 1929 crash (86 months) but the August 2000 peak, recovered only in May 2013: 153 months. January 1973 takes 144.
How long does it take to erase a bear market?
Forty-seven months at the median across a century and a half of US data — but the episodes range from 17 to 153 months.
In other words: the median describes the series, not the episode you are living through.
Five caveats, because they matter
- The answer depends entirely on what is measured: 47 months in real total return, 65 months in nominal price. Those are the same crashes.
- The data is monthly, so an intra-month trough or recovery does not appear. Durations are rounded to the month.
- The 20% threshold is a convention. Raising or lowering it changes how many episodes qualify, and therefore the median.
- The calculation assumes an investor who never sold and never added. It measures an index, not a portfolio.
- US data only, on the most favourable major market of the period. Japan since 1989 would give a different answer.
Why it still matters: the average wait after a crash is shorter than assumed once dividends and inflation are counted, but the spread between episodes is wide enough that no median tells you what to plan for.
For you
- When you are told how long a crash took to recover, is that price alone or total return?
- Of the fifteen recorded episodes, which one would your investment horizon have landed on?
Source: reproducible Ze Finance calculation on Robert J. Shiller's monthly S&P Composite series, Online Data (Yale), September 2024 vintage — January 1871 to September 2024, nominal price and real total return.
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