#MarketPullback

If you’ve ever watched the stock market dip and wondered, “Is this normal?”—the answer is yes! Stock market pullbacks, those moments when prices drop from their recent highs, are a regular part of investing. They can feel scary, but history shows they happen all the time. Let’s break down what pullbacks look like and how often they’ve shown up over the last 100 years, based on the S&P 500, a key measure of U.S. stocks.

A pullback is just a fancy way of saying the stock market takes a step back. Imagine prices climbing a hill, then sliding down a bit before (often) heading back up. We measure pullbacks by how much the market falls from its peak—say, 5%, 10%, 15%, or 20%. Each size tells us something different about what’s going on.

A 5% drop is like a speed bump—small and super common. Over the past 100 years, the stock market has hit a 5% dip in about 94 out of every 100 years. That’s almost every single year! Sometimes it happens a few times in one year, like little hiccups. It’s so normal that investors barely blink at it—it’s just the market taking a quick breather.