halfscot, your question about secular bull or bear market is good. I am using the term loosely, but I would suggest that we could look at these in terms of either the time span (multiyear trends, at least 10 and often much more), or in term of the basic socio economic underpinning. Unfortunately, the latter are not known until quite after the fact. Short term or cyclical bull and bear moves are more closely related to imbalances in the economy and in fluctuation in the fiscal and monetary policies. I am of the opinion that the 1966 to 1982 secular bear market was partially due to excessive allocation of resources to the cold war and the peaking of taxation, coupled with periods of inflation and stagflation. The current secular bull market (which I believe started in August 1982), was launched by combination of the "third industrial revolution" (the microprocessor and Moore laws, if you wish), coupled with more and more lenient taxation and the end of the cold war which allowed reallocation of resources to consumers, as well as the initial impact of the growth of "consumer societies" in the far east (and one of the reason, I think Japan has been in trouble is that in their fear of deficits and increased imports they clamped down on domestic consumption). I think that Japan is showing the first step (albeit minuscule) of relaxation, and that the rim current problems are more temporary and will be resolved by assets write down and contraction in productive capacity to a new balance. I do not see conditions which will bring to massive reduction in final demand or cuts in international trade (which were partially behind the 1929 to 1950 or there about secular bear market). I think the current bear is cyclical in nature (and thus of relatively short duration like 6 to 12 months), not secular.
Zeev
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