SHY max drawdown: 5.4%
iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF. From its 2021-05-31 peak, SHY fell 5.4% to the 2022-10-31 trough and needed 17 months to make a new high (2024-06-30). Computed from 678 months of history starting 1970-01-31, including extended pre-ETF data where available.
Short Treasuries, the near-cash sleeve.
SHY drawdown statistics
2021-05-31 peak to 2022-10-31 trough.
New high reached 2024-06-30.
Share of all months spent below a prior high.
Rolling year ending 2022-09-30.
For context, SPY (the S&P 500 baseline) had a maximum drawdown of 50.8% over the same kind of monthly-close analysis.
The biggest SHY drawdowns on record
| Depth | Peak | Trough | Recovered | Peak to trough | Total underwater |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -5.4% | 2021-05-31 | 2022-10-31 | 2024-06-30 | 17 mo | 3.1 years |
| -5.1% | 1980-06-30 | 1980-11-30 | 1981-03-31 | 5 mo | 9 months |
| -4.6% | 1980-01-31 | 1980-02-29 | 1980-04-30 | 1 mo | 3 months |
| -2.7% | 1979-09-30 | 1979-10-31 | 1979-12-31 | 1 mo | 3 months |
| -2.3% | 1994-01-31 | 1994-04-30 | 1995-01-31 | 3 mo | 12 months |
Methodology: monthly closing prices, peak-to-trough on total return where available. History extends before the ETF's launch via documented proxy chains (index funds, indices, and academic series), the same data that powers BestFolio's strategy backtests. Educational information, not investment advice.
Drawdowns are the reason tactical strategies exist
Buy-and-hold SHY means living through every number on this page. BestFolio tracks 46+ published TAA strategies whose whole job is cutting these drawdowns, with out-of-sample track records.