On 4 April 2025 the S&P 500 closed at 5,074.08, down 17.4% from its 19 February 2025 peak, with tariff headlines everywhere. A lot of people sold that day, or the Monday after, or at the 8 April 2025 low of 4,982.77. They were not foolish: the fall was 18.9% in 48 days, fast enough to feel like the beginning of something. Then the index turned. It regained its February peak on 27 June 2025, 128 days after the top, and kept going. By the research cutoff, 14 September 2026, it stood at 7,619.98.
The threads that followed are the largest in this research. “Every day cycling between regret and self-loathing.” “Probably lost 20k.” “Now seems like a terrible time to buy.” A second wave sold in October 2025 after the recovery looked exhausted, and asked the same question six months later. The replies to all of them are the same three: you should have done nothing; you have to be right twice; just buy back so we can stop reading this. None answers the question as asked, which is about the next decision, not the last one.
Selling was one decision. Buying back is a second one, made every day you do not make it. The forum is right that you have to be right twice. It never says what “right” would look like the second time.
What the money did while you waited
These are the numbers the threads guessed at (“probably lost 20k”). They are what the S&P 500 price index did between each selling day and 14 September 2026, against a 4% savings yield. They do not include dividends, taxes on the sale, or the fact that nobody knew any of this on the selling day.
Why the April sellers could not get back in
The problem was not the exit. The April exit looked good for exactly 4 days, until the 8 April 2025 low, and then it stopped looking good and never looked good again. Every day after that, buying back meant paying more than the selling price, which felt like admitting the sale was a mistake. Every further rise made the admission larger. That is the mechanism in all the threads: not a forecast, a feeling about a number that kept moving away.
Compare the three most recent US corrections from the inside, not the outside. In 2020 the index fell 33.92% in 33 days and was back at its peak on day 181. In 2025 it fell 18.9% in 48 days and was back on day 128. In 2022 it fell 25.43% over 282 days and did not regain its peak for 746 days — 24.5 months. Someone who sold on day 30 of each and waited for “confirmation” had two very different experiences and one identical feeling. On day 60 of 2025 the index was already climbing; on day 60 of 2022 it was still falling. The chart below shows why the same instinct produced a costly wait in one case and a comfortable one in the other.
| Sold on | S&P 500 close | Index since, to cutoff | Savings at 4% since | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 April 2025 | 5,396.52 | +41.2% | +5.8% | 35.4% |
| 4 April 2025 | 5,074.08 | +50.2% | +5.8% | 44.3% |
| 7 April 2025 | 5,062.25 | +50.5% | +5.8% | 44.7% |
| 8 April 2025 | 4,982.77 | +52.9% | +5.8% | 47.1% |
| 1 October 2025 | 6,711.20 | +13.5% | +3.8% | 9.7% |
| 10 October 2025 | 6,552.51 | +16.3% | +3.7% | 12.6% |
| 31 October 2025 | 6,840.20 | +11.4% | +3.5% | 7.9% |
Choose the rule before you look
The 2008 story on this site makes the argument in full; the 2025 version is shorter because the sellers are still in the middle of it. A re-entry rule is a condition you can observe without knowing the future. Markets Panic models four plain ones: buy after the index is 20% below its pre-crash level; buy after the first 5% rebound from the lowest level seen so far; wait until the old peak is regained; buy a fixed number of months after the crash starts. Each has a known failure. The drop rule never triggered in 2025 — the fall stopped at 18.9%. The rebound rule triggered within days of the 8 April 2025 low. The old-peak rule triggered on 27 June 2025, with the index 21.7% above the April selling price. The calendar rule triggered when the calendar said so.
Notice what the rules have in common: all four would have had the April seller back in the market by mid-2025, at a price above the sale. That is the part nobody in the threads could accept. A rule does not promise a better price than you sold at. It promises an end to the daily decision. The people who are still out in September 2026 are not out because a rule failed; they are out because they never wrote one, and “I’ll wait for a pullback” has no finish line.
Both futures from today
“Is now a terrible time to buy back?” is unanswerable as asked, because it needs the next year's chart. It is answerable if you split it. Future one: you buy back now and a correction like 2025, 2020 or 2022 starts tomorrow. Future two: you keep waiting and the index does what it did between April 2025 and September 2026 again. The calculator runs exactly this pair with your amounts, your savings rate and your rule, and it shows the rule's trigger month in each future — including the future where it never triggers and the money stays in savings while the market climbs.
That is the exercise the threads were asking for without saying so: not a prediction, but the two mistakes priced side by side before the next scare, so that the second decision is made once, on paper, rather than every morning.
What this does not prove
- The 2025 correction has been followed only to the research cutoff of 14 September 2026. Nothing here says what the index does next.
- The aftermath table uses the S&P 500 price index and a 4% savings assumption. Dividends, taxes on the sale, fund tracking and the actual savings product change every number.
- Three recent US corrections are three shapes, not a distribution. The next one can be a 2022, a 2025, or something not on this site.
- The selling days are the ones named in the threads read for this research, not a survey of when people actually sold.
- A re-entry rule is a way to stop deciding daily, not a way to beat the price you sold at. None of the four is recommended over the others.
Method and sources
The 2025 episode uses the same daily-close rules as every other episode: selected peak, lowest close before first recovery, first closing recovery. The aftermath closes are taken from the same cached snapshot. Intraday highs and lows are excluded. Research snapshot cutoff: 14 September 2026.
- S&P 500 historical data — 2025 peak 19 February 2025, low 8 April 2025, first recovery 27 June 2025; the 2020 and 2022 episodes; the selling-day and cutoff closes.
- Yardeni / S&P / Haver correction and bear-market tables — the conventional thresholds and the 2022 decline.
- The 2008 version of this story: the four re-entry rules in full.
- Markets Panic methodology, definitions, caveats and reproducibility notes.