S&P historical returns for 5 worst periods
Graph source: Robert Shiller
Drop over previous 5 years: 56.9 percent
In 1933, the Great Depression reached its nadir. On March 4 that year, a newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt told an anxious and economically shaken nation that the only thing it had to fear was "fear itself." That year also saw the signing of the Securities Act of 1933, which barred brokers from lying about investments and established the registration process for securities.