Don’t look now fans, but the United States is enjoying one of the longest economic expansions in history. In fact, First Trust tells us that if the economy can avoid slipping into recession for the next 18 months, this will become the longest period of economic growth on record. Granted, the pace has been maddening at times, but it is important to recognize that the economy appears to be doing just fine, thank you.

It is also worth noting that the stock market has been a stellar place to be invested over the last eight years. According to my calculator, the S&P 500 is up more than 280% from the March 9, 2009 crisis-low. However, I will admit that it was rough sledding there for a while after the crisis ended.

On that note, if we look at the gains in the market since the 2011 low, which occurred after the first couple go-rounds with Greece and the downgrade of U.S. debt, we find that stock market investors have enjoyed a “double” with the S&P sporting gains of more than 125%.

Even if one waited to invest in stocks until the most recent mini-bear ended in February 2016, their gain would now be approaching 40%. Not bad. Not bad at all.

And yet, investors remain nervous that the bad old days of 2000-02 and 2008 will return at any moment. Financial advisers are no different. I had meetings with six different financial professionals last week and to a man, they all believed stocks were sure to enter a bear market any day now.

From a behavioral perspective, I believe this represents a classic case of “recency bias,” which is the tendency to believe that the recent trends will continue in the future. As such, advisors and investors alike are adamant that they will be ready for the bears this time around.

The bottom line is nobody wants to see their 401K turn into a “201K” ever again!

Fighting The Last War

In my experience, this is called “fighting the last war.” You see, one lesson I’ve learned in my 30+ years of professional investing is that the next bear market is unlikely to look anything like the last one.