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S&P 500 tracker (SPY): down sessions by calendar year, 2016 to mid-2026

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-15, from The 3-5-7 Rule in Options, Examined.

as of table 11×5read in context →
S&P 500 tracker (SPY): down sessions by calendar year, 2016 to mid-2026 — 11 rows by 5 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
yearsessionsdays_down_1pctdays_down_3pctworst_day_pct
2016252221-3.61
201725140-1.77
2018251325-4.12
2019252150-2.98
20202534516-11.63
2021252210-2.45
2022251658-4.34
2023250280-1.99
2024252190-2.97
2025250303-5.98
2026123150-2.59
Rows × columns
11 × 5
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for S&P 500 tracker (SPY): down sessions by calendar year, 2016 to mid-2026, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
year number 2,016 to 2,026
sessions number 123 to 253
days_down_1pct number 4 to 65
days_down_3pct number 0 to 16
worst_day_pct number -11.63 to -1.77 percent

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number 
WITH daily AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
           toFloat64(argMax(close, window_start)) AS px
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= toDate('2015-12-01')
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) <= toDate('2026-06-30')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY d
),
moves AS (
    SELECT d,
           100 * (px / any(px) OVER (ORDER BY d ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND 1 PRECEDING) - 1) AS move_pct
    FROM daily
)
SELECT toYear(d) AS year,
       count() AS sessions,
       countIf(move_pct <= -1) AS days_down_1pct,
       countIf(move_pct <= -3) AS days_down_3pct,
       round(min(move_pct), 2) AS worst_day_pct
FROM moves
WHERE isFinite(move_pct) AND toYear(d) >= 2016
GROUP BY year
ORDER BY year

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More from this analysisThe 3-5-7 Rule in Options, Examined
One-day move profile, seven household names, July 2025 to June 2026 table 7×6 → Worst five-session stretch and deepest in-window drawdown, July 2025 to June 2026 ranking 7×4 → The same Kelly calculation on the S&P 500 tracker, year by year, 2016 through 2025 table 10×5 → One expiration of the SPY chain: closing prices and delta by strike, August 21 2026 expiry, as of July 15 2026 table 8×6 → Median quoted bid and ask by strike: SPY calls expiring August 21 2026, regular session of July 15 2026 table 7×5 → Kelly inputs from daily closes, 2016 through 2025: win rate, average gain, average loss, and the fraction the formula returns table 6×5 → See all 2,170 queries →