Is this bull market about to top-out? That concern, not unsurprising when prices spurt as in recent days, becomes even more important because we are just days away from the 1,059 day mark when a previous, the 1996-2000 market, collapsed.
Further, today’s S&P500 advance of 1.1 percent is its third greater-than-one-percent gain this month; there were only 29 in all of last year.
Our diagram reveals the close parallels of the last three bull markets. Note the steep spurts just before these expansions hit their tops in 2000 and in 2007.
The good news though is that the current growth spurt, while sharp, is not as steep as at the end of 2000 cycle. It resembles more nearly the longer and milder expansion toward the end of the 2007 top. That is promising, since if significant historical repeats exist, it implies that we are more likely to have a lengthier expansion, nearer 1,154 rather than 1,059 days.
Yet the comparison of the frequency of S&P500 daily increases larger than one percent shows a greater similarity between the current expansion and the 2000 top, than with the 2007 story. Whereas the greater-than-one-percent gains come 17 percent of all closes since the 2009 bottom, they are almost equal to the 18 percent 1996-2000 expansion. That’s is near double the 9 percent rate that happened in the longer, 1,154 day bull market between 2003 and 2007
DJIA .80 percent
NASDAQ .97 percent
S&P500 1.03 percent
