It’s football season and all of the sports gurus are giving their list of top 25 teams in the country. In the spirit of football season, I thought it may be fun to rank the length of the current bull market against historical market recoveries. Fortunate for us, the analysts over at Bespoke Investment Group have already put the data together for us.
According to Bespoke, the bull market that began March 9, 2009 has crossed over the 2,000 day mark. Going back throughout the S&P 500’s history starting in 1928, only three other bull markets have lasted longer.
Take a look at this chart…
(Chart source: BespokeInvest.com)
While this puts the current bull among “the greats” in terms of time, we must not lose sight of how deep the hole was we had to recover from. Based on our research we continue to see the opportunity for this market to move higher over the next 12-24 months. We believe the market is fairly priced, but certainly not over extended.
With this said, remember nothing moves in a straight line (at least not in the market). The current bull market is intact until the data proves differently. It is perfectly normal to experience pullbacks of 5-10% multiple times throughout the year. So far we have had one pullback over 5% in February and then a 4.3% move down in August. We expect these fluctuations to occur as they are part of a healthy market.
As always, if and when the facts change – so shall we, but for now, we continue to give the current bull market the benefit of the doubt.
