A maximum drawdown is the largest loss an investor would have experienced by buying at a market peak and holding until the lowest point before the market reached a new high. This visualization shows the six worst U.S. market drawdowns since 1975, each represented as a triangle aligned at its trough. The base of each triangle represents the duration of the drawdown (time under water), while the apex represents the maximum loss. An apex reaching the bottom of the graphic would correspond to a total loss of the invested capital.  The 2007–2008 Financial Crisis saw the deepest drawdown (−50%) and a 46-month recovery. The Dot-com crash (−44%) showed similar timing. Black Monday 1987 fell sharply (−27%) but recovered in just 14 months, while the early-1980s recession produced a milder drawdown (−20%) with an 8-month recovery period. Recent crises rebounded faster: COVID-19 (−22%) recovered in 7 months, while the 2022 downturn (−20%) took 23 months.

Data: Monthly S&P 500 price data from Robert Shiller's long-term US stock market dataset (1975-2025).