Late And Right vs. Early and Wrong

Investors,

What if the lows are in?

To be clear, I don’t think the lows are in (and I’m about to share what will change my mind) — but even while I’m bearish, I think this is an important question to ask.

By the skin of its teeth, the S&P 500 actually hasn’t entered a bear market (yet) after narrowly avoiding the official milestone on last Monday & Tuesday.

In order to officially be counted as a bear market, the index needs to fall at least -20% on a daily closing basis. So far, the S&P 500 has fallen a total of -18.9% from the highest daily close on 2/19/25 to the lowest daily close on 4/8/25.

On Friday, Ryan Detrick posted this chart of all official and near-official bear markets:

What stood out to me was that there were 5 prior “near-official” bear markets in:

• 1978

• 1990

• 1998

• 2011

• 2018

If we make a massive assumption that the lows are in, wouldn’t it be important to know how similar market environments performed after narrowly avoiding bear market territory?

Wouldn’t that be useful to help set expectations & develop a blueprint for the future?

I think so.

Here’s the data: