Note from Doug: Today is a milestone. The August 6th S&P 500 close is the final data point for the Four Bad Bears chart. The timeline was established by the length of the 1929-1932 Dow crash, and today we reach the equivalent point following the S&P high of 2007.
If you track cyclical markets, the question in the series title was answered in the affirmative last year. If you think in secular terms, as I often do, the question is still relevant. Thus, I'll be periodically updating other charts on dshort.com that track these longer cycles.
I first posted the "Four Bad Bears" chart in the fall of 2008. Since I overwrite it daily, I don't have a copy of the first post, but here's an early version, courtesy of Bill McBride at Calculated Risk, dating from November 19, 2008.
I will retain the current market chart (the second one here) and expand the horizontal axis as needed. But the updates will probably move to weekly with more frequent updates in periods of high daily volatility.
The S&P 500 closed the day down 0.37% but the week up 1.82%. The year-to-date performance is 0.59%. The index is 65.8% above the March 9 2009 closing low but 28.3% below the peak in October 2007.
Click the second chart for a closer look at the index behavior since the 2007 high.
Here is a StockCharts.comsnapshot showing the relationship of the S&P 500 to its 50- and 200-day simple moving averages.
For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here's a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.
For a bit of international flavor, here's a chart series that includes the so-called L-shaped "recovery" of the Nikkei 225. I update these weekly.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
