The Month After a New All-Time High

The Month After a New All-Time High

The S&P 500 made another all-time high last week. That's 14 already in 2026, on top of 57 in 2024 and 39 in 2025.

Going back to 1988, the average gain in the month after a new high is just under 0.2%, well below the +0.89% return on any other day.

That's the part that feels intuitive. The surprise is what happens if you keep going. Twelve months after a new all-time high, the S&P 500 has averaged a +11.4% price return, better than the +10.1% from any other day. Add dividends back in and the gap widens by another roughly 2%. The short-term hesitation that can follow a record close gives way to a longer-term tailwind.

The takeaway is not that nothing can go wrong. Plenty of new highs were followed by drawdowns; 2000 and 2007 are in the dataset. The takeaway is that all-time highs are not, on their own, a top signal. The market spends about 8% of its trading days at a record close. Most of those days were good ones to own stocks.

Until next week,
Jacob

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