This Year’s S&P 500: Worse Than Last Year

There’s no question stocks have had a good start to 2013, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index up more than 6.5%. The recent performance has been so good, in fact, that it’s prompted some concerns of an imminent pullback/correction/disaster.

But as with so much else in life, context is important — and for all the hoopla about the first six weeks of 2013, the fact is we’re off the pace set in 2012:

Bespoke Investment Group

That chart is from the team at Bespoke Investment Group, who note that while “the S&P 500 is certainly overbought” last year we didn’t see a meaningful pullback until the index had seen a year-to-date gain of more than 12%.

Which is not to say a pullback can’t happen before then, nor that we’re set fair to go higher: After all, last year’s early pop came after a flat 2011 whereas this year’s rise follows a 13.4% annual gain.