I’ve been too busy to post anything for awhile but I want to at least briefly address the question above.

I don’t tend to over-react to the market action of any single week or so. Over the years, I’ve seen many upswings follow panics and many plunges be replaced by steady gains. I was lucky enough to call the current cyclical bull market that began in March of 2009 for what it was 3 days before the actual low (and was roundly heckled by those too deeply immersed in the day-to-day heartbreak from October 2007 to March 2009. See article here.

We must remember that no market goes straight up or straight down. Within this current up-cycle, it is easy to forget that the S&P 500 (SPY) had a drop of 16% from April 23 till July 2, 2010 that had the permabears claiming we were headed for Doomsday once again.

Or that from April 29, 2011 until October 3, 2011, the S&P fell 19.2%. Was T.S. Eliot right? Is April really the cruelest month?

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

• From The Wasteland

…sometimes.

But April isn’t alone. From May 2 to August 25, 2015 the S&P fell another 12.4%. 

By comparison, this current pullback might seem like a piker. And it may yet prove to be. But this time feels different to me. In particular, it comes too closely on the heels of the previous decline. I mean, really, we had a rally of just 9 weeks before the US markets came tumbling down again?

Add to this that the cycle since 2009 has run nearly a full 7 years. Were these the fat years? Are lean ones ahead? (Some relief here: unlike the cycle related in Genesis 41, bear markets tend to be more volatile but also tend to last only half as long as bull markets.) No matter how you slice it, we are either very close to or beyond the expiration date of this bottle of milk.