“A Bull Walks Up the Steps, a Bear Jumps Out the Window”

There’s an old Wall Street expression that “a bull walks up the steps while a bear jumps out of the window.” (I’ve seen many different formulations of this quote.) The idea is that the market rises slowly while the downturns are sharp and fast.

This is very true and it’s an important part of investing. We can even see this effect with the stock market this year. The S&P 500 peaked in late January, and it’s been pretty much sideways since then. Twice, the S&P 500 close more than 10% below its high which is the traditional boundary of a correction.

But if we dissect this a bit, we can see a different market. The S&P 500 fell a combined 6.1% over two days, Friday, February 2 and Monday, February 5.

Please note that I’m not saying that the market fall didn’t happen. Rather, I’m saying that the bulk of it happened in a very small timeframe. Those two days have always counted for most of the lost ground since January 26.

I’ve often noticed that when people start debating if a market correction is going to happen is about the point the correction has passed.

Posted by on May 29th, 2018 at 11:01 am


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