BEAT THE COUCH · THE ARCHIVE · THE WAR BOTTOM

Could You Have Bought the Bottom of World War II?

THE WINDOW: APR 1, 1942 TO MAR 31, 1944 · 504 TRADING DAYS

April 1942: Bataan, U-boats off the coast, and the market near its low. The couch bought and turned $10,000 into $16,609. Only 5.2% of 1,470 players beat it.

THE COUCH'S $10,000, DAY BY DAY, REAL DAILY DATA

$10,000 START $16,609 Apr 1, 1942 Mar 31, 1944

What the couch did

ENDED WITH$16,609 (+66.1%)
WORST DRAWDOWN-12% by Nov 29, 1943
WORST SINGLE DAY-3.9% Apr 9, 1943
BEST SINGLE DAY+2.5% Jul 8, 1942
CASH INSTEAD (T-BILLS)+0.7%

What happened

April 1942. Four months after Pearl Harbor. Bataan is falling, German submarines are sinking ships within sight of the American coast, and the war looks like it is being lost. The stock market bottomed on April 28, 1942, at the moment the news was as bad as it would ever get.

The couch bought anyway, because it does not read newspapers. Midway came in June. The market turned. Two years later the couch had $16,609, up +66.1%, with a worst drawdown of only 12%. Cash earned +0.7%.

This is the archive's purest test of a simple idea: the time to buy is when it feels impossible, and nobody ever does.

What the players did

GAMES FROM THIS YEAR1,470
BEAT THE COUCH5.2%
CERTIFIED SKILL3.8%
MEDIAN TRADES4
MEDIAN TIME IN MARKET56%

Player figures cover every game whose window started in 1942, not only the exact hand above, and come from the run export of October 31, 2026. A win counts as SKILL only if it beats 90% of 1,000 monkeys replaying the same window with the same trade count and the same time in the market. Across the thirty windows in this archive players beat the couch 39.2% of the time, because these are the famous years. Across the whole ledger the couch wins 62% of 120,800 games.

The read

5.2% of 1,470 players beat the couch here, one of the worst human results in the archive. The median player finished -17.1% against it. There is no crash to sidestep in this window, only a recovery to miss, and the players missed it the usual way: a little at a time, by stepping out to wait for things to feel safer.

Play this exact windowfree, no signup, about two minutes. Same two years, same data, no hindsight.

Frequently asked

Did the stock market go up during World War II?

Yes. A couch that bought on Apr 1, 1942 and held two years turned $10,000 into $16,609 (+66.1%) while the war was still being fought.

When did the stock market bottom during World War II?

April 28, 1942, months before the tide of the war turned at Midway. In windows starting in 1942 only 5.2% of players beat a couch that simply held.

Method: real S&P 500 daily total returns, dividends included, calibrated to Damodaran's annual series; cash earns 3-month T-bills. The same data the game deals. See the evidence page for sources, and the full ledger for the whole ledger.

← 1937, the relapseAll thirty windows1946, the postwar crash →

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Not financial advice. The couch is not licensed for anything.