Cramer Says S&P 500’s Four-Year Run Shows Cost of Exiting

Mad Money host Jim Cramer said the S&P 500’s roughly 118% advance since its Oct. 12, 2022, low shows why investors may miss recoveries when they exit during periods of uncertainty.

The four-year bull market continued through aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes, a banking crisis, sweeping tariffs and war in Iran. The rally began amid broad concerns about inflation and economic weakness, but those setbacks did not stop the benchmark’s rise.

A $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 at the October 2022 low would have grown to nearly $23,061. The gain reflects the market’s recovery from the sell-off that preceded the current advance.

The performance of several large technology companies was stronger. Nvidia rose roughly 1,875% over the same period, turning a $10,000 investment into approximately $197,505. Meta Platforms gained 488%, lifting a comparable investment to more than $58,800.

Cramer said the main lesson was not to identify the next top-performing stock, but to recognize how difficult it is to anticipate both sharp declines and strong rebounds.

“We could not have predicted either the big declines or the big rebounds,” Cramer said. “We could’ve turned tail so many times in these four years. And we would’ve been all the poorer for it.”

Cramer said the bull market illustrated the difficulty of timing declines and recoveries.