Every S&P 500 bottom since 2016 — and what they had in common
Since 2016, DoubleTrends™ has flagged 12 oversold reversals on the S&P 500 index. Seen together they reveal a clear pattern: the signal tends to appear when downside momentum is stretched and beginning to recover. They also show the uncomfortable part of any rule-based system — some alerts arrive early.
Every signal fired after a genuine decline — a median of 13.2% below the recent peak — at the point downside momentum had stalled. Here is the drawdown when each one fired, and the S&P 500's return in the months that followed:
| signal date | drawdown at signal | +1m | +3m | +6m | +12m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-10-31 | −7.5% | +1.8% | +0.5% | +8.1% | +13.1% |
| 2018-12-28 | −15.2% | +7.9% | +15.3% | +19.3% | +29.6% |
| 2020-03-26 | −22.3% | +9.4% | +17.3% | +23.4% | +51.1% |
| 2022-05-04 | −10.3% | −4.5% | −3.4% | −12.6% | −3.8% |
| 2022-05-17 | −14.8% | −10.3% | +4.5% | −2.4% | +2.7% |
| 2022-05-24 | −17.8% | −0.8% | +5.1% | +1.6% | +5.3% |
| 2022-10-05 | −21.1% | −1.7% | +0.6% | +8.5% | +13.8% |
| 2022-10-17 | −23.3% | +8.5% | +6.8% | +13.0% | +17.3% |
| 2023-11-01 | −11.6% | +8.4% | +17.0% | +21.0% | +35.2% |
| 2025-03-17 | −7.6% | −4.9% | +6.3% | +16.4% | +16.7% |
| 2025-03-19 | −7.6% | −6.9% | +5.4% | +16.9% | +14.6% |
| 2026-04-01 | −5.8% | +10.0% | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Across all the signals, the median return afterward was:
Positive 91% of the time.
Positive 82% of the time.
Positive 91% of the time.
The market returns about +9% in an average year. The year after a signal was usually above that because the signals tended to fire after real stress, not during calm conditions. That does not make the next signal predictive in isolation; it gives useful base rates for interpreting the alert when it appears.
Honesty matters more than a tidy story. The best calls were the deepest ones: the COVID low on 2020-03-26 (+51% over the next year), the December 2018 bottom (+30%), the November 2023 low (+35%).
May 2022 is the cautionary tale. DoubleTrends™ fired three times that spring — and the market kept grinding lower into October. Anyone who acted on the May signals sat through more pain before the real bottom arrived. The signal is not a forecasting guarantee; in a slow bear market it can fire early. What matters is that the rule did not disappear. It fired again in October, near the actual low, and the following year was positive.
Three things appeared again and again: a real drawdown rather than a 2–3% wobble, exhausted downside momentum, and, eventually, a recovery attempt. DoubleTrends™ does not predict the bottom. It waits for the first two and flags them, so the dip is on your calendar instead of buried inside fear and headlines.
That distinction matters for ETF investors. A broad-index alert can support a contribution plan or staged cash deployment, but it should not be treated as an instruction to deploy all cash on a single date. The historical record is useful because it shows both the upside cases and the waiting periods.
Watch the next one as it happens.
DoubleTrends™ tracks the S&P 500 index daily and sends one alert when it fires, for ETF investors using funds such as VOO, SPY, or IVV. See all 12 historical signals replayed on the live chart, then let the next rule-based prompt come to you.
Data & method
S&P 500 price index (^GSPC) daily closes, 2016 to present, via Yahoo Finance. Forward returns are price-only from each signal date (excludes dividends). The 2026 signal is too recent for the 3-, 6-, and 12-month horizons and is excluded from those medians (n=11 for 3m and longer; n=12 at 1 month). Educational information only — not financial, investment, or trading advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.