S&P 500 gives back the last of its 2002-2007 advance

The stock market has bounced off its morning lows, but only after wiping out the last of the 2002-2007 bull market’s gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Numerologists ought to enjoy this: The S&P fell as low as 776.76 this morning. That was precisely the closing low of the 2000-2002 bear market, reached on Oct. 9, 2002.

At about 10:40 a.m. PST the S&P had rebounded to 795.20, still down 1.4% from Wednesday’s close.

Although some traders’ computers may have been set to buy around 776.76 on the expectation of a bounce, it still strikes me as an amazing coincidence that the index would turn at exactly that point.

Of course, it’s still early. We could test that level again before the closing bell, and break through it. UPDATE: The market ended the day with devastating losses, sending the S&P down to 752.44.

For buy-and-hold investors, falling back to 776.76 on the S&P means there is nothing left to show for being in those 500 stocks for the last six years, other than some minimal dividend income. On a risk-adjusted basis, you certainly would have been better off in a money market fund.

Other market indexes, however, haven’t yet given back all of their 2002-2007 gains.

The low on the Dow Jones industrials this morning was 7,774.58, compared with the closing low of 7,286.27 at the bear-market bottom on Oct. 9, 2002.

The Nasdaq composite, which hit 1,345.57 this morning, would have to fall to 1,114.11 to take back all of its 2002-2007 advance.

The sad fact is, this has been a lost decade for stocks -- not just a lost six years. The Dow, the S&P and the Nasdaq all are in the red since Dec. 31, 1999.