FYI: Could the stock market’s impressive upswing since Christmas Eve be nothing more than a bear-market rally?
Most investors appear to believe that the answer is “no” — even after Monday’s 204-point drop brought the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.05% to a two-week low. After all, many of the major market averages recently rose to levels that were more than 20% higher than their Christmas Eve lows. In the process, stocks over the first two months of 2019 turned in one of their strongest calendar-year starts for the market in decades.
How can this be a bear-market rally? The short answer: It’s happened before. Rallies in excess of 20% during bear markets are hardly unprecedented. In each of the 2000-02 and 2007-09 bear markets, for example, both the S&P 500 SPX, -0.11% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.02% rallied by more than they have recently — only to eventually succumb to the bear market that remained in force.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-recent-stock-gains-could-be-just-a-bear-market-rally-2019-03-05/print
