How do you define a market?

[nizar]

How do you know what we are in a bearmarket or a bullmarket?

After 2000-2002, at what point after May 2003 did the "experts" or commentators or traders in general, decide, okay we are in a bullmarket?

Was May 2006 to September 2006 a bearmarket?

How long do we have to be going down/sideways for us to become a bearmarket?

 

[tech/a]

Nizar.
General rule of thumb appears to be.(If we ignore Dow theory,Lower highs and lower lows in both the DJIA and the Transport index)

10% decline from the high.
Then Lower highs and lower lows.

 

[nizar]

Nizar.
General rule of thumb appears to be.(If we ignore Dow theory,Lower highs and lower lows in both the DJIA and the Transport index)

10% decline from the high.
Then Lower highs and lower lows.

Thanks tech/a.
Is a bullmarket simply the inverse?

Once a bearmarket is here, what needs to happen for a bullmarket to commence?

Is it 10% appreciation from the lows, and then higher highs and higher lows?

 

[tech/a]

I guess so but as I say its a rule of thumb.

In the short term it would be the making of a new higher high.
However in a prolonged bear market there would need to be a point of capitulation just as there would be in the end of a bull market.

Elliott and some other forms of analysis can anticipate probable capitulation areas,so I guess they could be from an aticipation view point be seen as "early". but as you know nothing is confirmed until it is confirmed both in time and price.

This period is yet to be "confirmed" as a bear market although there are some who are looking at 31/89-6/9 as the timing of a lower high and the resumption of the "Bear".

Fundamentally there appears more bearish than bullish factors playing out.

erring on the cautious side if long (shortening timeframes) and looking for short side opportunity in the longer and perhaps more immmediate timeframe maybe worth consideration particularly if a lower high is cemented into our charts.