It’s a bull market
The S&P 500 remains in a bull market (last confirmation: December 11) - and for all periods since the 1920s, the S&P 500 has been in a bull market on roughly 80% of all trading days.
The chart in the comments section shows the all-time chart of the S&P 500 where bull market periods are shaded in green while bear markets are shaded in red. Bull markets have historically been much more prevalent than bear markets, so if you bet against the market, the odds are stacked against you.
The current bull market (the „AI bull“) that began in October 2022 has easily cleared the 1000-day mark, which is about the average length of all bull markets. But the current bull’s 89.4% gain remains below the long-term average bull market gain of 114.4%.
Please note that bulls have gotten much longer since WWII as the US stock market became more and more developed. The average bull market since 1945 has seen a gain of 155.1% across 1633 days. To get to those „average levels“, the current bull would extend into 2027 and see a further gain of about 35% from where the S&P 500 is trading now.
