An Historic Look At Past Bull and Bear Markets

Below we highlight historical bull and bear markets of the S&P 500 since 1945. A bull market is defined as a closing price rise of 20% that was preceded by a decline of 20%. A bear market is defined as a closing price decline of 20% that was preceded by a rise of 20%.

Since 1945, the average bull market has been 1,625 days with an average rise of 149.53%. The average bear market has been 393 days with an average decline of 30.57%. So the typical bull is long and strong, while the typical bear is short and nasty.