THE BULL MARKET OF THE 1980S AND EARLY 1990S?

As a recession ended in 1982, the Dow rallied from a low of 776.92 on
August 12 to 1070.55 by December 27, a 37.79% increase. This signals
a turning point for the Dow and the beginning of that spasm of the
dominant investment system often referred to as the “Great Bull Market
of the Late Twentieth Century.”
The Dow blundered upward through its first significant new high
in 16 years7 to post a 27.66% return in 1985. The excitement this
caused on Wall Street was not shared by Main Street.
Investors sought vehicles that would lower income taxes and capitalize
on inflation. It was oil and gas or real estate investments that
the well-heeled who came into our offices in the 1980s demanded. We
could barely get them to consider stocks and hardly blamed them.
From 1970 to 1974 stocks returned an annual average rate of –2.36%.
From 1973 to 1977 the average annual return was –.21%.8 Investors’
patience for the market had worn thin. A quote from Venita Van
Caspel’s best-selling financial planning book of the decade sets out
the limits of tolerance most people had for the Dow: “In my opinion,
selected common stock equities will be a viable choice, intermittently
for around 25% of your investment dollars during the decade of the
eighties.”9