Happy Birthday Bull…

Happy Birthday Bull…

March 9th marked the 2nd birthday of our current bull market since the S&P 500 bottomed on 3/9/09¹. This bull market has been vigorous compared to past bull markets which leaves many to question how long it can continue.

What next?
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” –
Mark Twain

Viewing bounce backs after major bear markets² yields interesting conclusions to the potential longevity of this bull market.

8 of the last 12 bull markets that celebrated a 2nd birthday went on to notch gains for the 3rd year, with an average return of 9%. On a “roundtrip basis”, which includes the bear and the next 2 and 3 years, we can see that the roundtrip performance of our recent market is actually below averages, due to the severity of the ’07-’09 drop.

What to do?
“All generalizations, including this one, are false” –
Mark Twain

Pundits have been predicting this market will drop solely because it’s gone up for 2 years. We don’t know if the market will rise for a 3rd year, but this

analysis shows us that it is not a foregone conclusion.