October 11, 2018

The Stock Market Has Been Dead Flat Since January 1

Every once in a while I like to adjust the S&P 500 for inflation just to see what it looks like. It’s something that more people ought to do regularly, since it’s the only way to properly represent a time series of money values. Anyway, I did it today because the stock market is in the news, and here’s what it looks like:

Adjusted for inflation, the S&P 500 is at precisely the same value as the first day of January. It has increased 0 percent.

I just thought that was interesting enough to make a chart of it and show it to everyone. As always, this might mean the market has peaked and is getting ready to turn bearish for a while. Or it might mean that equities are now a relative bargain and the next year could be a strong one. I don’t know! If I did, I’d be a billionaire and I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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