A recession is a bear, but a bear is not necessarily a recession. This has implications for rebound ability.

1. What's interesting at the moment is that we have a number of companies doing very well, and some good companies faultering for various reasons. This is confusing investors about whether there are economy issues (everything is going great, but there's enough companies floundering to make you nervous).

2. We also have political concerns locally and in the USA. This is making doubts for the future and compounding concerns from point 1.

3. The are also economic problems in some countries, which don't seem to have any bearing on the world economy. Extra negative sentiment to compound concerns from point 2.

That said, we are not currently in a recession and although there are some concerning things going on, i can't see any evidence to suggest that the economy has been sufficiently dented to push us into a recession in the next year or two.

Therefore, i would say that this bear is just market sentiment (which has implications on my buying strategy). That said, it seems like a serious bear because it's triggered TA marks and the media reporting has changed tone (which i believe can cause self fulfilling prophecies), so it could hang around long enough for us to see the effect (if any) of point 2, before either getting much worse or triggering a bull.

Personally, I'm mostly cash except for my wbc stock that i timed poorly (that one im riding out). I'm avoiding high PE stocks because i see these as having lots of sentiment priced in. I will probably use this bear to trickle money back into stocks at a lower price, averaging my buy price over the period of the bear. The gambler in me will probably try to pick the bottom (which will be difficult due to my lack of experience of bears). I will certainly be looking out for bargains in my favorite stocks.