The S&P 500 since 2015 in monthly candles: the crashes are shorter than you remember

Key takeaways

The S&P 500, priced through SPY, rose 275 percent from January 2015 ($199.45) to July 2026 ($747.03), about 1 percent a month compounded for eleven and a half years.
Both bear markets of the window are shorter on the chart than in memory: the 2020 crash cost 19.9 percent of the index in two red candles, the 2022 decline 24.8 percent over nine months.
The worst month of the series (March 2020, down 13.0 percent) and the best (April 2020, up 12.7 percent) sit side by side, which is the strongest argument on the chart against selling into a panic.

What's happening

The chart draws the US stock market's last eleven and a half years as monthly candles through SPY, the largest S&P 500 ETF: each candle spans one month's open, high, low, and close, green for a month that closed up, red for down. Ninety-three of the 139 months are green. That ratio, two green months for every red one, is the whole engine of the 275 percent rise.

Presented daily, this period contains two of the most written-about market events of the century. Presented monthly, they nearly disappear, and that compression is what the chart is for.

2 of 139

Monthly candles it took to price the 2020 crash: February and March. From the December 2019 close to the March 2020 close SPY lost 19.9 percent; by April it had already recovered 12.7 percent, the best month of the series.

The crashes are shorter than you remember

The fastest crash of the window is a single long lower wick. March 2020's candle traded all the way down before closing at $257.75, down 13.0 percent on the month, the worst of the series; the very next candle was the best. A reader who only checked this chart monthly would have experienced the pandemic crash as two bad readings.

The 2022 bear market reads differently: nine months of mostly red candles from the December 2021 close of $474.96 to the September 2022 close of $357.18, a 24.8 percent grind with no single dramatic month. Slow declines are harder to sit through than fast ones precisely because the chart offers no obvious bottom.

What the last stretch shows

From the September 2022 low the index doubled in under four years, and the recent candles keep setting records: the intramonth high of $760.40 came in June 2026, and July closed at $747.03, within 2 percent of it. The candles of 2024 through 2026 are mostly short-bodied and green, the signature of a market climbing on low monthly volatility.

What to watch

Whether the next red cluster looks like 2020 (fast, two candles) or 2022 (slow, nine), because the two shapes reward opposite behavior. How far the market travels above the June record of $760.40 before the next 10 percent pullback. And the same months drawn for NVIDIA or Intel, where the index's quiet green wall resolves into much wilder individual rides.

Common questions

How much has the S&P 500 risen since 2015?

Priced through SPY: 275 percent, from $199.45 at the January 2015 close to $747.03 in July 2026. That is price only; it excludes the dividends the fund pays out.

What was the worst month for the market in this window?

March 2020, down 13.0 percent on the monthly close. The best month, April 2020 at plus 12.7 percent, came immediately after.

Why chart SPY instead of the index itself?

SPY trades like a stock, so it has a true open, high, low, and close for every session. Its price tracks the S&P 500 closely at roughly one tenth the index level.

How deep were the two bear markets?

On monthly closes: 19.9 percent from December 2019 to March 2020, and 24.8 percent from December 2021 to September 2022. Intramonth, both went deeper.

Data: SPY (the S&P 500 ETF) as monthly OHLC candles (Twelve Data, January 2015 to July 2026), from the Kitegraph library. Each candle is one calendar month; drawdown figures compare monthly closes, so intraday and intramonth extremes were deeper. Figures are price returns and exclude dividends. The compounding figure is the geometric monthly average implied by the endpoint closes.