Could You Wait Years for Best Buy Stock to Rebound?
The electronics retailer is riding high on a strong quarter, but its history in market shocks tells a different story about the long road back from a fall.
Best Buy (BBY) stock is trading near its 52-week high, up over 41.4% in the past month after a strong earnings report. The electronics retailer posted better-than-expected results, with comparable sales growing 2% and adjusted earnings per share up 11% in its first quarter. On the latest call, management highlighted a “ninth consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales” in computing and a fifth in mobile phones.
This calm performance, driven by sales of consumer technology, makes it easy to forget the risks. But for a company so tied to discretionary spending, the real question concerns its behavior in a true market shock—how far it can fall, and whether you can ride that out—rather than the strength of its last quarter.
How Steep Are Best Buy’s Crash-Time Drops?
When the broad market stumbles, Best Buy stock tends to fall harder. Across the 15 major shocks it has traded through, its average peak-to-trough drop was about 26%, compared to just 16% for the S&P 500. Its single deepest drawdown was a 67% plunge during the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis.
The stock has been particularly vulnerable during “Credit & Liquidity Crises,” a category that includes not just the 2008 meltdown but also the Summer 2007 Credit Crunch and the 2023 SVB Regional Banking Crisis. In those events, it fell 33% on average, a stark reminder of its amplified downside.
How Long Best Buy Takes To Recover
Surviving the fall is one thing; waiting for the recovery is another. For the shocks Best Buy has fully recovered from, it took a median of about 13 months to reclaim its prior high. But the wait can be much longer. After the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis, it took about 107 months for the stock to fully heal.
Recovery is not a guarantee. As of today, the stock has not fully reclaimed its high from the 2025 US Tariff Shock. A quick rebound in the past is no promise for the future.
Every Major Shock Best Buy Has Traded Through
Peak-to-trough drawdown in each shock, and how long the stock took to reclaim its pre-shock high. Stock vs. the S&P 500, long-duration bonds, and its sector.
| Shock Event | Stock | S&P 500 | Bonds | Sector | Recovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer 2007 Credit Crunch | -11% | -8.6% | No decline | -12% | ~3 mo |
| 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis | -67% | -53% | No decline | -51% | ~107 mo |
| 2010 Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis / Flash Crash | -31% | -15% | No decline | -19% | ~42 mo |
| 2011 US Debt Ceiling Crisis & European Contagion | -25% | -18% | -1.1% | -17% | ~23 mo |
| 2013 Taper Tantrum | -11% | -0.2% | -17% | No decline | ~36 mo |
| 2014-2016 Oil Price Collapse | -15% | -6.8% | -5.0% | -7.9% | ~17 mo |
| 2015-2016 China Devaluation / Global Growth Scare | -19% | -12% | -4.4% | -13% | ~11 mo |
| 2016-2017 Trump Reflation Bond Selloff | -0.7% | -3.7% | -15% | -3.9% | ~4 mo |
| Q4 2018 Fed Policy Error / Growth Scare | -35% | -19% | -2.2% | -20% | ~6 mo |
| 2020 COVID-19 Crash | -44% | -34% | -0.7% | -34% | ~5 mo |
| 2022 Inflation Shock & Fed Tightening | -36% | -24% | -35% | -36% | ~30 mo |
| 2023 SVB Regional Banking Crisis | -20% | -6.7% | -4.3% | -8.1% | ~15 mo |
| Summer-Fall 2023 Five Percent Yield Shock | -25% | -9.5% | -17% | -14% | ~8 mo |
| 2024 Yen Carry Trade Unwind | -6.2% | -7.8% | -1.2% | -11% | ~1 mo |
| 2025 US Tariff Shock | -38% | -19% | -3.8% | -22% | Not yet |
[1] Summer 2007 Credit Crunch: Subprime hedge fund failures froze interbank lending, prompting an emergency Fed rate cut.
[2] 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis: Lehman’s collapse froze global credit, crashing every asset class and spiking unemployment.
[3] 2010 Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis / Flash Crash: Greece’s deficit revelation collapsed European banks and triggered the May Flash Crash.
[4] 2011 US Debt Ceiling Crisis & European Contagion: US credit downgrade and European sovereign stress triggered a broad risk-off selloff.
[5] 2013 Taper Tantrum: Bernanke’s taper hint spiked Treasury yields, triggering emerging market capital flight.
[6] 2014-2016 Oil Price Collapse: OPEC refused to cut output, crashing crude from $100 to $26.
[7] 2015-2016 China Devaluation / Global Growth Scare: Yuan devaluation sparked global recession fears, crushing cyclicals and emerging markets.
[8] 2016-2017 Trump Reflation Bond Selloff: Trump’s election spurred fiscal stimulus hopes, rotating capital from bonds into cyclicals.
[9] Q4 2018 Fed Policy Error / Growth Scare: Powell’s hawkish comments and trade war fears triggered the worst December since 1931.
[10] 2020 COVID-19 Crash: Pandemic lockdowns caused history’s fastest bear market before massive stimulus drove recovery.
[11] 2022 Inflation Shock & Fed Tightening: 9.1% CPI forced aggressive rate hikes, crushing both stocks and bonds simultaneously.
[12] 2023 SVB Regional Banking Crisis: SVB’s rate-driven bond losses triggered a social-media bank run, seized by FDIC.
[13] Summer-Fall 2023 Five Percent Yield Shock: Strong economic data pushed 10-year yields to 5%, compressing yield-sensitive sector valuations.
[14] 2024 Yen Carry Trade Unwind: BOJ rate hike unwound yen carry trades, briefly crashing tech stocks globally.
[15] 2025 US Tariff Shock: 145% China tariffs crashed equities and the dollar on supply chain disruption fears.
Has Best Buy Changed Since Those Crashes?
The Best Buy of today is not the same one that endured the 2008 crisis. The business has new profit streams from its Marketplace and Best Buy Ads initiatives, which are delivering a “positive contribution to gross profit rate.” It also has a near-term catalyst with a one-year national retail exclusivity on a new television technology. Operating margin is solid at 4.3%.
However, new risks are present. Management expects rising memory costs to lead to “lower units” in the crucial computing category. The appliances business was “pressured” in the first quarter, and the company faces a tough comparison lapping last year’s “very successful gaming launch.” As a retailer of big-ticket discretionary items, its fate remains tightly linked to consumer confidence, making the historical pattern of amplified drawdowns highly relevant.
Could You Ride Out Best Buy’s Next Drop?
That deepest 67% historical drawdown is more than a number: on a position sized at 10% of a portfolio, it would have erased about 7% of your total capital. At a 20% position, that hit becomes about 13%. The question is whether your financial plan can absorb that kind of impact and for how long.
The one lever you fully control is exposure. Disciplined position sizing and genuine diversification are the tools for managing this specific risk, ensuring that a steep drop in one stock does not derail your entire portfolio.
That discipline is exactly what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is built to deliver: it pairs the upside of strong businesses with the stability of a 30-stock portfolio, sized and rebalanced with discipline, and has a track record of outpacing the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Pairing a concentrated holding with an approach like this is how you keep compounding without a single drawdown derailing the plan.