Will the Bear come here ?

[Beagle]

So seeing as the poll of how serious is the bear is split almost exactly 50/50 in terms of its seriousness or not and seeing as the NZX is one of the few markets in the world to be up for 2018, (apparently up 3.8% and being a gross index it should be noted that without the dividends it would be down very slightly) and seeing that the American markets for the first time ever recorded fell more than 1% on Christmas eve, actually more than 2% and several of their indices are now officially in bear market territory I thought a new poll would be appropriate, Will the bear come here ?
Now we know from Wikipedia that Bears reside only in North and South America, Europe and Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear and so it seems with their share markets too, thus far, (although Australia is down a fair bit in 2018)
You'd almost be forgiven for thinking with our border control and isolation that Bears can't immigrate here...but seriously...might the chilling effects of bears elsewhere make their presence felt on our share market in 2019 or will our high dividend yield or some other factors shield the NZX from the worst ?
Please forgive the metaphorical nature of the poll questions, hopefully each slection and its implications are clear enough.
Not in the poll but if we do go into a full blown bear market (poll selection 4) how long do you think it will last ?

I will opine early on this one. I don't think you need to wait for the market to fall by the classic 20% to officially be in a bear market.
Business and consumer confidence is fragile and certainly not helped by an inexperienced government with a vast array of future policy currently in a state of flux in dozens and dozens of working groups. Business doesn't like uncertainty and that's exactly what we have going into 2019.
Some experts believe the forward PE on the NZX is still above 20 and is for example well ahead of the 14.5 of the S&P 500 in the US.
I think the potential for PE contraction remains very real for 2019 and we could see companies grow earnings but still make no difference to their share prices.
My focus is mainly on defensive dividend yield companies and I expect most of my return for 2019 to come from dividends.
To a large extent what happens to our markets will be determined by what happens overseas, (I know I am stating the obvious here but "bear" with me). RBNZ does have some room to move with the official cash rate and bank requirements and I expect they will need to dip into their toolbox at least once in 2019, probably twice or maybe three times. I ticked option 3 as I expect bearish tendencies next year even if we don't get to a full scale bear arrival.