As a new tool from Bespoke, we have added Bespoke Reference as a category on our site.  These reports provide a historical perspective of the markets and the economy through charts and tables and are typically not readily available elsewhere online.  For our first Bespoke Reference report, we highlight historical bull and bear markets of the S&P 500 since 1945. A bull market is defined as a closing price rise of 20% that was preceded by a decline of 20%.  A bear market is defined as a closing price decline of 20% that was preceded by a rise of 20%.  Since 1945, the average bull market has been 1,625 days with an average rise of 149.53%. The average bear market has been 393 days with an average decline of 30.57%. So the typical bull is long and strong, while the typical bear is short and nasty.  Bespoke Premium members have access to PDFs and downloadable Excel files of all Bespoke Reference reports.

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