Market Crashes
Pick a historic crisis and see how each asset actually performed from its pre-crash peak — real recorded price history, not a projection.
Global Financial Crisis (2008)
Oct 9, 2007 – Mar 9, 2009
A collapse in mortgage-backed securities triggered a banking-system crisis that spread worldwide. The S&P 500 lost more than half its value peak to trough, the deepest decline of any crisis on this list.
Each asset uses its own actual trading history within the crisis window — if an asset doesn't have data that far back (e.g. Bitcoin before 2014, silver before September 2000), its row shows the actual date its data begins instead. All figures are price-only and exclude dividends, so every asset is compared on the same basis.
| Asset | Start | End | Total Return | Max Drawdown | 10,000 $ Became |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | Oct 9, 2007 | Mar 9, 2009 | -56.78% | -56.78% | $4,322 |
| Gold | Oct 9, 2007 | Mar 9, 2009 | +25.51% | -29.54% | $12,551 |
| Silver | Oct 9, 2007 | Mar 9, 2009 | -3.90% | -57.51% | $9,610 |
Peak to Trough
Showing growth of $10,000 invested in each selected asset right at the crisis's peak.
How This Comparison Works
Each crisis in the dropdown uses widely-cited peak and trough dates for the S&P 500 (or the closest equivalent event for that period) — the same real daily price history behind the historical comparison tool and the individual S&P 500, gold, silver, and Bitcoin calculators. This isn't a simulation with assumed rates — it's what an investment at the actual pre-crash peak would actually have become by the actual trough.
Want a custom date range instead of a curated crisis? Use the historical market comparison tool, which works the same way but lets you pick any start and end date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do some assets show a different start date than the crisis?
If an asset's price history doesn't reach back to the crisis's actual peak date (e.g. Bitcoin doesn't exist before September 2014, silver's daily data starts August 2000), its row shows the earliest date it actually has data for instead, flagged in red.
Does this include dividends?
No, every asset here is price-only, on purpose — gold, silver, and Bitcoin don't pay dividends, so adding a dividend estimate only to the stock indices would make this a less fair comparison across a crisis window.
Why does gold or Bitcoin sometimes rise during a stock crash?
Gold is a traditional safe-haven asset that often (though not always) moves independently of, or even opposite to, stocks during a crisis, which is why some investors hold it as a diversifier. Bitcoin's behavior during crashes has varied a lot by era — it fell alongside stocks in the 2020 COVID crash and the 2022 bear market, for example, rather than acting as a safe haven.