How Good An Indicator Was "The Death of Equities" Cover

In his monthly outlook for August, famous bond investor Bill Gross declared that "The cult of equity is dying." Naturally, Bill Gross' comments brought up memories of the famous "The Death of Equities" BusinessWeek cover from 1979, and what a good buying opportunity that was for US equities.

Just how good of a buying indicator was the BusinessWeek cover from 1979, though? If you ask most investors about that cover story, they seem to remember that the market almost immediateley took off after the issue was published. The reality, however, is that nearly eight months after the cover story was published, the S&P 500 was down 8.5%. While the market did rally from that level, three years after the infamous BusinessWeek cover, the S&P 500 was still down nearly 5%. It wasn't until 8/12/82 that the S&P 500 really took off and the bull market began in earnest. Granted, time horizons have gotten a lot shorter in the last thirty years, but three years is an eternity in this market.