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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dalin who wrote (30937)	5/3/2000 5:50:00 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42523

Dalin, the last secular bear market began in the early 70's and lasted until the early '80s. during that time, the favorite stocks of the late '60's, early '70's (the 'nifty fifty' as they were called, all high quality 'one-decision' stocks like CSCO and INTC, etc. are today) lost between 70-90% of their value from peak to trough. most took about 15 years to recover their old highs (longer than the indices). some, like Polaroid, have still not recovered. before that we had the grand-daddy of all secular bear markets that began in '29. while THE low was made in '32, it took until '54 to regain the highs, and there were several vicious cyclical bear markets interspersed in the recovery, e.g. 1937, which was a real doozy. only very few of the darlings of the 20's were still around when the indices regained their highs. Japan, after having enjoyed the mother of all bull market bubbles from '74 til '89 has been mired in a secular bear market for well over 10 years now. note that this was also deemed to be an impossible occurrence at the height of the bull. i haven't yet mentioned cyclical bears that took place in the context of secular bulls, but were sometimes extremely tough on investors, like 1957, 1962, 66, 69... well, we're now at the tail-end of a secular bull market, and it is reasonable to expect that a secular bear will begin at some point. note that the S&P index has made NO, as in ZERO, progress in well over a year. the only index that is still higher than it was a year ago is the Nasdaq, and even so it is well below its bubble high. in spite of all the bull market hype, the majority of stocks has in fact been in a bear market since the a/d line peaked in April '98. for all we know, a secular bear market may already have begun! note that bull markets traditionally peak exactly at the point when everything is extremely rosy, low inflation, low unemployment, high productivity, etc.etc. they don't peak when things look bleak.