Citi's data could change how you invest at S&P 500 highs

A caller investigation from Citi Wealth's Investment Lab challenges 1 of investing’s astir ingrained habits: waiting for a pullback earlier putting wealth to work. Drawing from six-and-a-half decades of information dating backmost to 1960, the findings overgarment a representation astir casual investors would find counterintuitive, and the implications could reshape however you deliberation astir deploying cash.

Here is what Citi's probe really found, wherefore the numbers enactment a antithetic approach, and what starring Wall Street strategists are telling their clients to bash astir it.

Citi's 65-year survey shows peak-day buyers performed conscionable arsenic good

The halfway uncovering from Citi Wealth's Investment Lab study is deceptively simple: investors who bought the S&P 500 connected days erstwhile it closed astatine a grounds precocious earned returns virtually identical to those who invested connected immoderate different time implicit 1-, 3-, and 5-year periods, going backmost to January 1960.

That uncovering unsocial undercuts the communal presumption that buying adjacent the apical locks successful subpar show for years to come. Since 1960, the scale has reached a caller grounds adjacent 1,195 times, meaning highest days relationship for astir 1 retired of each 14 trading sessions crossed the period, the probe noted.

The 1990s unsocial produced 311 caller highs, portion the 2010s generated 242, demonstrating that grounds peaks are a recurring diagnostic of steadfast markets alternatively than a informing signal.

The probe besides recovered that marketplace highs clump unneurotic successful agelong stretches, often spanning full decades earlier a large disruption resets the cycle. Only the 2000s, marked by the dot-com implosion and the fiscal crisis, produced a comparatively bladed full of conscionable 13 caller highs crossed the afloat decade.

The hidden outgo of waiting for an S&P 500 pullback

Perhaps the astir striking constituent of Citi's investigation is what happens to investors who beryllium connected the sidelines and hold for a meaningful pullback earlier committing superior to equities. The information suggest that, successful this circumstantial context, patience has historically been punished alternatively than rewarded.

Using S&P 500 information from 1960 done July 2025, Citi examined guardant returns for investors who held disconnected aft a grounds high, waiting for a 5%, 10%, oregon 20% diminution earlier getting invested, the study indicated. The results overgarment a costly representation for those who take to hold connected the sidelines.

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After a grounds high, it took an mean of 143 trading days for adjacent a humble 5% pullback to arrive, and investors waiting for that dip were invested for lone 62.5% of the full period, the Citi information showed. For those holding retired for a 10% drop, the mean hold stretched to 225 trading days, leaving them invested conscionable 44.9% of the time.

Investors waiting for a afloat 20% correction sat successful currency for an mean of 290 trading days and were invested lone 25.4% of the time, the study noted.

The astir important takeaway from the study is that, successful galore instances, the pullback an capitalist was waiting for ne'er materialized during the measurement period.

Wall Street strategists reenforce Citi's record-high findings

Citi is not unsocial successful reaching these conclusions, and J.P. Morgan's ain probe utilizing information from 1988 done 2024 recovered that the S&P 500 has often delivered stronger cumulative returns aft reaching a caller highest than it produced connected immoderate random trading day, J.P. Morgan noted successful its analysis.

J.P. Morgan strategists besides observed that since 1950, the S&P 500 has reached an all-time precocious connected astir 7% of trading days, and astir a 3rd of those highs became caller marketplace 'floors', levels from which the scale ne'er fell much than 5% again.

That information constituent unsocial suggests that an all-time precocious is much often a launching pad than a cliff borderline for equity prices going forward.

“Being truly circumstantial astir wherever you allocate hazard to wrong the equity markets is going to beryllium cardinal for the remainder of the year,” said Kristy Akullian, BlackRock’s caput of iShares concern strategy.

Kristy Akullian, caput of iShares concern strategy for the Americas astatine BlackRock, echoed that optimism, saying the steadfast remains bullish connected U.S. equities. She besides characterizes her team's outlook arsenic 1 that pairs continued assurance successful the maturation of artificial quality with sensible portfolio diversification crossed aggregate plus classes.

Why S&P 500 all-time highs support clustering unneurotic

Citi's study explained that grounds highs thin to awesome robust economical fundamentals alternatively than irrational exuberance, and the aforesaid conditions that pushed prices to a caller highest often enactment continued upward momentum for months oregon adjacent years afterward.

The S&P 500's past since 1960 shows that caller highs person arrived successful long, dense clusters separated by comparatively little adust spells. The 1960s produced 229 caller highs, followed by a thin 1970s that saw lone 35, reflecting the stagflation and lipid shock-era headwinds connected firm net and capitalist confidence.

The 1980s rebounded to 190 peaks arsenic ostentation cooled and the system expanded, and the 1990s tech roar powered the highest single-decade full of 311 grounds closings.

The 2020s had already recorded 176 grounds closes done July 31, 2025, according to information from the Citi Wealth Investment Lab. Ryan Detrick of Carson Group has noted that the S&P 500 recovered from the 2022 carnivore marketplace and notched a caller grounds successful January 2024.

What Citi's information means for your portfolio decisions

The applicable upshot of Citi's probe is that the fearfulness of buying astatine a highest has historically been much costly than the hazard of a near-term correction for investors consenting to support a 1-, 3- oregon 5-year holding period.

Detrick told Benzinga that investors with a longer clip skyline tin spend to look past short-term volatility. He noted that each twelvemonth brings scary headlines and achy drawdowns, but that remaining invested done those episodes has consistently produced amended outcomes than retreating to cash.

Citi's ain study cautioned that marketplace volatility tin inactive pb to meaningful short-term losses if a correction occurs soon aft an investment. The information does not regularisation retired a achy drawdown successful 2026, and Detrick himself has warned that midterm predetermination years person historically produced the largest peak-to-trough pullbacks.

With midterm-year intra-year declines averaging 17.5% since 1950, compared to 11.2% to 12.9% successful years one, three, and 4 of the statesmanlike cycle, according to Carson Group, Citi's survey distinguishes betwixt short-term discomfort and semipermanent regret.

Related: Citi conscionable added an AI cause to your wealthiness absorption team

This communicative was primitively published by TheStreet connected May 4, 2026, wherever it archetypal appeared successful the Investing section. Add TheStreet arsenic a Preferred Source by clicking here.