>How big an increase is 77%, anyway?
Very big. Best the S&P 500 has done in the last century was 42% in 1936; it was up 34% in 1983 and 30% in 1997. I think the best any major stock index has ever done was the Nasdaq in 1999, which was up something like 80% using yearly averages (though it was up 100% from March 99 to the peak in March 00). Small stock markets like Russia's, though, are a lot more volatile than big ones.
Doug