I agree with your 6.5 years bear mkt assessment. The 70s look like that too, a really horrible year 73/74, then a rally and flat for years afterward, until about 80 or some say 82.
The point is these brutal bear markets happen, then a flat period which is where we are now. I qualify this flat period as a continuing bear, but then you get people on other threads trying to convince me that the 2003-2005 period is some kind of raging bull, just because we haven't crashed like the 00-02 period. I think lots of people don't remember what a real bull market is like.
As far as the length and magnitude of the 82-2000 bull and its exceptionalism, all I can say is that up until the very last period in the 90s, it was the 50s that were the best investment decade (for stocks). Meaning, we have had GREAT markets before and the 80s and 90s weren't really an anomaly until the very last part of the 90s. Again this bear market has the few posters on the financial boards (who are mostly all bearish- which is why they are still here) saying things that aren't really accurate about the likelyhood of another great market again.
The one issue that is significant is the "historic PEs". Not sure what that means to tech stocks though, with options expensing. We may never get to historic PEs again with cash flows and "earnings" digressing so completely.
I guess my feeling is the last 5 years have been a horrible market of herculean proportions, and yet you don't hear it characterized as that too often. The general consensus is the 90s were an anomaly, and yet, the 00-05 period was NOT that same anomaly (to the downside). I think it was. |
