How Often Does the Stock Market Go Up? Every S&P 500 Day, Week, Month and Year Since 1950, Counted

The stock market goes up on about 53% of trading days. That is the honest answer to a question people ask after a red week, and it sounds like a coin flip because, day to day, it nearly is. The reason investing works anyway is what happens when you stretch the holding period: the S&P 500 ended higher in 75% of all one-year windows since 1950, 93% of ten-year windows, and every single fifteen-year window.

We counted all of it from the index's daily closes, January 3, 1950 through October 9, 2026: 19,314 daily changes, 4,005 weeks, 921 months, 76 calendar years, and every possible holding period from one day to twenty years. This guide gives the base rates, what a losing streak does and does not tell you, how 2026 compares, and what the numbers mean for the way you set rules. It is education, not advice.

How often the S&P 500 goes up: days, weeks, months, years

• Days: 53.1% up. Of 19,314 trading days, 10,261 closed higher than the day before, 8,928 closed lower and 125 were unchanged. The edge is real but small: about 53 up days for every 47 down.
• Weeks: 56.8% up. 2,273 of 4,005 weeks ended above the prior week's last close.
• Months: 60.5% up. 557 of 921 calendar months finished higher. Roughly three months in five.
• Years: 73.7% up. 56 of 76 calendar years from 1950 through 2025 closed above the prior year's close, price only. About three years in four.

The pattern is the whole lesson. The odds of an up period rise with its length, not because the market gets safer, but because the small daily edge compounds while the daily noise cancels out. A 53% day is a coin with a slight bias; a year is that coin flipped 252 times.

The odds of ending higher, by holding period

Calendar periods only count windows that start on January 1 or a Monday. A more complete test starts a window on every trading day. Here is the share of all possible windows that ended above where they started, with the median result and the worst case, price only:

• One day: 53% positive. Median move +0.05%. Worst day -20.5% (October 19, 1987).
• One week: 57% positive. One month: 62%. Three months: 67%. Six months: 71%.
• One year: 75% positive. Median +10.7%, worst -48.8% (the year to March 2009), best +74.8%.
• Three years: 86% positive, median +28%. Five years: 84%, median +52%, worst -42%. Five years scores slightly below three because two stretches, 1965 to 1974 and 1997 to 2007, each produced years of five-year windows that ended lower.
• Ten years: 93% positive, median +121%. The 7% of losing decades all start between 1964 and 1972 or between 1998 and 2001, and the worst, February 1999 to March 2009, finished -45% down.
• Fifteen and twenty years: 100% positive. The worst fifteen-year window since 1950 still ended +5.7%, and the worst twenty-year window +54%. Not one window of either length lost money, out of 15,535 and 14,275.

Price only matters here. Dividends would lift every figure, and they would turn the handful of losing ten-year windows into roughly break-even ones. Inflation would push the other way. The shape of the table does not change.

What a losing streak tells you about tomorrow

Almost nothing. After one down day the next day was up 50.4% of the time. After three straight down days, 53.2%. After five, 55.2%, in 458 cases. After three straight up days the next day was up 52.8% of the time, and after five, 53.2%. Every one of those numbers sits within a few points of the unconditional 53%. Streaks feel like information; the count says they are mostly noise.

The longest winning streak since 1950 was 14 trading days, 1971-03-26 to 1971-04-15. The longest losing streak was 12 days, 1966-04-22 to 1966-05-09. Neither happened in a crisis year; both are the ordinary tail of a 53/47 coin flipped nineteen thousand times.

Size is a different story from direction. The index moved 1% or more on 4,028 days (21% of all days), 2% or more on 871 days (4.5%), 3% or more on 256, and 5% or more on just 54. The direction of tomorrow is close to a coin flip; the size of a bad day is what a plan has to survive, which is why our drawdown study measures depth rather than streaks.

Has it changed? Decade by decade, and 2026

The daily up rate is remarkably stable: 1950s 54.2%, 1960s 53.0%, 1970s 50.6%, 1980s 52.8%, 1990s 53.6%, 2000s 52.2%, 2010s 54.8%, 2020s 54.1%. The worst decade for the daily coin was the 1970s and the best the 2010s, and the gap between them is four points. Through October 9, 2026 the index has closed higher on 101 of 194 days, 52.1%, a normal year for this statistic, even with the 9% drawdown it has already produced.

What the base rates mean for your rules

• Do not react to a red day, or three. A down day changes the odds of tomorrow by under a point. If a losing streak makes you want to change a plan, the plan was not sized for a normal week.
• Match the holding period to the odds you need. Money you must have back in a year faces a one-in-four chance of being lower. Money you can leave for a decade has faced about one chance in fourteen, and in fifteen years none since 1950. Our lump sum study shows what that base rate does to the question of investing all at once.
• Plan for the size of bad days, not their frequency. One trading day in five moves 1% or more, and one in twenty-two moves 2% or more. A position that cannot take a 2% day without forcing a decision is too big. That is a position-sizing question first and a stop-loss question second.
• For traders, the daily edge is not enough on its own. A 53% up rate on the index does not transfer to a single stock on a single day, and it is swamped by costs on short holds. Trading rules have to earn their edge from the setup, the stop and the size, not from the market's tilt.

If you would rather have those rules enforced for you, with stops, a daily loss brake and position caps applied inside the brokerage account you already have, that is what JorgAI does. You can set them once and the rules hold on the 47% of days that go the wrong way.

Quick answers

What percentage of days does the stock market go up? About 53%. From 1950 through October 2026 the S&P 500 closed higher on 10,261 of 19,314 trading days, lower on 8,928, and unchanged on 125.

How often is the stock market up in a year? 74% of calendar years since 1950 (56 of 76), and 75% of all rolling one-year windows measured from every trading day, price only.

Has the S&P 500 ever lost money over 10 years? Yes, in 7% of ten-year windows since 1950, all of them starting between 1964 and 1972 or between 1998 and 2001. No fifteen-year or twenty-year window has lost money.

Is the market more likely to go up after a down day? Barely. The next day was up 50.4% of the time after one down day and 55.2% after five, against 53.1% on any day.

What is the longest losing streak in the S&P 500? 12 straight down days, 1966-04-22 to 1966-05-09. The longest winning streak was 14 days in 1971.

Data: S&P 500 daily closes from Yahoo Finance (ticker ^GSPC), January 3, 1950 through October 9, 2026, counted by JorgAI; close-to-close changes, every rolling window measured from every trading day, price only, no dividends. Past patterns do not predict future returns. This article is education, not investment advice.