“We’re watching the market almost tick-by-tick. Day-by-day ... You need to be able to step back. And look at the whole forest from the trees. Seeing the big picture still remains, ... the key to investing.”
Howard Silverblatt
This week has given the markets plenty to digest. But for many of us at S&P Dow Jones Indices, the most significant data point isn't on the tape. It’s on the calendar. Tomorrow marks the final day of Howard Silverblatt’s legendary 49-year tenure at our firm. For five decades, Howard’s definitive voice tracked the ebb and flow of the world’s most prominent index with a precision that turned financial math into a narrative art form. Whether he was breaking down S&P 500®, buyback yields for the Wall Street Journal or explaining the compounding power of dividends on CNBC, Howard taught a generation of investors that while price is what you pay, the underlying cash flow is what you get. Today’s special edition offers tribute to the man who proved that behind every index point, there is a story worth telling. Here is your daily dashboard.
- Remarkably, the world stage today looks uncannily familiar to the one Howard began analyzing in May 1977. Then, as now, headlines were dominated by a U.S. President calling for Europe to increase defense spending, friction in the Taiwan Strait, and soaring copper prices. Even as these and other tensions remained a constant backdrop to his career, equity markets marched relentlessly higher. Howard didn't just witness this growth; he became its faithful scribe, documenting the compounding power of the American stocks in every research note. As his most recent update poignantly spelled out: "In my 49th year at S&P, May 1977 – December 2025: 9.18% annualized stock return and 12.13% annualized total return; last person standing."
- America’s half-century success story told for a thousand-fold: when Howard started at S&P DJI’s predecessor on May 17, 1977, the S&P 500® had a market capitalization of $60 billion. As he departs in 2026, the index sits with a staggering aggregate market cap of over $60 trillion.
- That increase in market capitalization went hand in hand with impressive total returns for those who were onboard for the ride: since Howard joined to yesterday’s close, without and with dividends, respectively, the S&P 500® has a 9.1% and 12.1% annualized return, for a cumulative 6894%, and 25,492%, over the full period.
- Howard was among the first to formalize the tracking of share repurchases following the SEC's adoption of Rule 10b-18 in the eighties. He turned "Buyback Yield" into a household term for institutional investors, tracking their rise to a sustained trillion-dollar annual pace by the mid-2020s. In the meantime, Howard earned his reputation as the premier authority on payouts by tracking the index's journey to a record $700+ billion in gross dividend payments expected in 2026. That corresponds to an annualized growth rate of 7% since 1988.
- Despite the astonishing long-term gains, the last five decades were rarely plain sailing. The Great Financial Crisis saw the steepest drop of his career, while the Dot-com Bust, the longest bear market of his tenure, saw the index labor for over seven years just to recapture its March 2000 highs. Throughout, Howard reminded his readers that the "last person standing" is the one who keeps their eyes on the long-term math.
- While broad market stress created the headlines, the composition of the S&P 500 shifted in tandem with the evolution of the U.S. economy. A comparison of the top 10 index constituents then, and now, reveals a wholesale change of the guard. Every behemoth from Howard’s first year has yielded their place at the top table as they were displaced, disrupted, merged into obscurity, or went outright bankrupt. This evolution underscores a key Silverblatt lesson: the index survives and thrives precisely because its individual components are allowed to fail.
- Finally, on a personal note: Howard, I’ll never forget our first meeting on Teams in the middle of COVID. I spent most of it trying to decode that legendary Brooklyn accent of yours! But once I finally tuned into the "Silverblatt frequency," a whole new world of market wisdom opened up and our ongoing interactions provided me with a masterclass in how to find the pulse of the market. Thank you for the mentorship, the wit, and for always reminding us that behind every number is a story worth telling. Wishing you a retirement filled with high yields and low volatility!
