I vote to call it a Bear Market!

[Chuckanut]

The Wall Street hedge fund firms who have "Program trading" algorithms set up, are probably cleaning up.

That scenario make me feel like doing any serious trading at this point (other than keeping my AA where it should be ) would make me their prey.

 

[Chuckanut]

Below is an interesting article by Bob French analyzing Bear market statistics. He really doesn't tell us much we don't already know. But, I did enjoy the statistics the amount and length of the decline, and what happens if one fails to properly time the bottom and thus gets back in to early or to late.

https://www.mcleanam.com/this-is-what-risk-looks-like/

In short, if we have entered an extended downturn (and the historical precedents tell us anything), we’ve likely already taken a pretty big chunk of the total loss that we will take before the markets turn around. Which would obviously further limit the effectiveness of market timing as a strategy to avoid taking the losses from an extended downturn.

 

[Nick12]

With the Russell 2000,Nasdaq and 60% of the S&P in a Bear Market, I think we can stop calling it a correction. Agree or disagree with a +1 or -1.

-1. Investors that think the sky is falling should chill out. From Dec 24 thru present day the bulls are running again!!

 

[street]

-1 >> direction is up, but the DJIA (24700) as of today, is where we started in Jan. 2018, we will see where it goes from here.

For the first 19 days of the year I'm up a New 2019 Mercedes-Benz AMG S 63 loaded. So I can't see that we can call this a Bear but what do I know. I'm just along for the ride and I don't over think when it comes to money. What ever it is, it is.

 

[audreyh1]

-1. Investors that think the sky is falling should chill out. From Dec 24 thru present day the bulls are running again!!

We’ve already made back our annual withdrawal and then some!

But I fully expect a retest of the Dec 24 lows. Can take a few months.

 

[Andre1969]

As of yesterday's close, I've made back about 98% of what I "lost" in 2018. So, I dunno if I should call what just happened a Bear market or a hiccup! Of course, we're not out of the woods yet...

I'm still off about 6.7% from the peak I hit back at the end of September, 2018 though. But, around Christmas Eve I had bottomed out down around 17.5%, so I'm not gonna complain.

 

[garyt]

As of yesterday's close, I've made back about 98% of what I "lost" in 2018. So, I dunno if I should call what just happened a Bear market or a hiccup! Of course, we're not out of the woods yet...

I'm still off about 6.7% from the peak I hit back at the end of September, 2018 though. But, around Christmas Eve I had bottomed out down around 17.5%, so I'm not gonna complain.

Sounds almost exactly like me. And I'm retiring in May, so got a little nervous. Really happy to see it come back some. If it comes back a little more, I'm thinking of taking 10% more out of equities. About 75/25 now.

 

[steelyman]

I recall flying pretty high last January and how things were by year end.

A good nod to the wisdom of the late and great Mr. Bogle is to remember to “stay the course”.

 

[OldShooter]

S&P is up 37.65% over the last three years. That's over 11% annualized. Dow is up over 14% annualized. I can live with that.

My cure for recency bias is to always look at one and three years' history. Never shorter.

 

[Andre1969]

I recall flying pretty high last January and how things were by year end.

A good nod to the wisdom of the late and great Mr. Bogle is to remember to “stay the course”.

Yep, at one point I think I was up close to 6% in January 2018, and finished the month up around 4%. It looked like 2018 was off to a great start. But then February hit. At one point, I think the markets might have dropped around 10%, and I can remember a lot of people panicking and catastrophizing. It bounced back off that low pretty quickly, although Feb and, to a smaller degree March, were down months for me.

Actually, even back during the Great Recession, there was a December/early January bounce. I had hit bottom on 11/20/08, but by 1/6/09, I was up around 30%. February took most of that away, and then I bottomed out again on March 9, although at a slightly higher NW than 11/20/08.

So, I don't think we're completely in the clear yet. But, I'm just trying to think long term!

 

[LOL!]

Here is an article this past week by Robert Shiller of Yale about

‘Bear Market’ Is an Arbitrary Label, but Using It Can Hurt

Sometimes it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here is the last paragraph:

Narratives matter in the stock market, which is, in many ways, a social-psychological barometer. Whether people are exulting about a bull market or running from a bear, volatile emotions are involved. In the next round in the stock market, we will see who outnumbers whom.