Two Weekend Birthdays

I consider it an honor to share my birthday this weekend with the S&P 500 Index. The index, which debuted on March 4th, 1957 has had quite an impressive run. Let's review a few interesting data points:

1. S&P 500 Average Annual Return with Dividends Reinvested- 10.83%
2. Roughly 1/3 of the average annual return is due to reinvested dividends.
   
3. $1,000 Invested in the S&P 500 on 3/4/1957 is now worth over $170,000.
4. $1.26 Trillion is invested in mutual funds and other investment vehicles that track the S&P 500 Index. That's roughly 9% of the value of all publicly traded stocks in the country.
5. Only 86 of the original 500 companies in the index are still in the index today.
6. If you had bought and held the 500 companies in the index on 3/4/1957 your average return would have been 11.71%. So buying and holding the original stocks dramatically outperformed buying and holding the index.
   
7. Best one day percentage gain: October 21, 1987, +9.10%
8. Worst one day percentage lost: October 19, 1987, -20.47%
9. Average P/E 17.37 (Current P/E is 17.74)
10. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared March 5th 2007 to be "S&P 500 Day." Don't forget to throw a party.

Have a great weekend.