Courtesy of Doug Short.
During the Great Financial Crisis, I updated this chart series on a daily basis. I retired it over a year ago but have posted occasional updates on request. With the market selloff of the past two weeks, my inbox has accumulated an amazing surplus of such requests. So here again are the Four Bad Bears.
Since inflation is a favorite topic on this website, I’ve also updated a set of charts to facilitate a comparison of the nominal and real declines. See also my logarithmic scale view of the "Four Bad Bears" comparison.
For charts of S&P 500 bear market and recoveries since 1950, see this series.
For a better sense of how these cycles figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets, adjusted for inflation, 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.
