Quote Originally Posted by winner69 View Post
Whats happening now

In December 1999 the DOW was 11497 - currently 12486 -- up 8.6% over the last 7 years is some effort eh .... see what I mean about a secular bear market .... about half way one through I guess.

Since and inc 2000 the DOW has had 3 up years and 4 down years.... this year prob a down so the score is 3/5 ... see what I mean about a secular bear market

The current downturn is only adjusting for the recent 'bull market' correction that occurs during secular bear markets - and this downturn is only 10% off a high so probably has a lot more to go

Both the NZ and Aust markets have performed much better over the last few years and are currently valued at PEs seen at the highs of market valuations ..... nowhere where they end up at an end of a secular bear market.


Result of all - as of today nearly cashed up .... and not embarassed at all
In claiming we're still in a bear market you use a very convenient time frame to make that assumption. Using the same analogy gold has been in a secular bear market for the past 27 years - price still lower than in 1980, more down years than up.

Three of the four down years occurred in 2000-02. That was a bear market. Since then the market has three out of four up years. That is a bull market.

The Aust market is nowhere near a valuation high. Current PE of 13 is lower than the 15 year average.

Being able to move to 100% cash might be easy and realistic and comforting for a small time investor, but if you have large sums of money invested across the asset classes (incl property), it is far more difficult to achieve this.