To be sure, the current stock market environment is challenging. Intraday volatility is quite high, the major indices are not marching to the beat of the same drum, and holding the wrong stock or sector ETF has proved to be a frightening affair in 2014.
In case you can't relate to this sentiment, check out the charts of the ETFs in Biotech (NYSE: XBI), Internet (NYSE: FDN) and Social Media (NASDAQ: SOCL) or names like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD), Pandora (NYSE: P), Yelp (NYSE: YELP) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).
In short, the action has been more than a little scary at times. This is a market where it has been oh-so easy to lose money and with the exception of the strategy of being long only on Tuesday's (according to Bespoke, being long on Tuesday's would have produced a gain of nine percent so far this year), making money has been downright difficult.
Time For The Bears To Return?
The action has left many analysts worried that the current bull market, which is clearly long in the tooth by just about any measure, could be slowly morphing into something far grizzlier in nature. As such, this might be a good time to review what might cause the bears to suddenly awaken from their hibernation and begin wreaking havoc on people's investment portfolios again.
See also: Top 10 Reasons Why Yields Have Fooled Investors
But before we get started on a review of potential bear market catalysts, let's remember that, as the chart below of the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) plotted weekly clearly illustrates, this remains a bull market.
S&P 500 Weekly
However, if investors have learned anything over the last 15 years, it is that (a) all good things come to an end and (b) bear markets are no fun (and should be avoided if at all possible).
So, given that this bull has run a long way and as it can be argued, is looking a little tired, it is a good idea to be on the lookout for potential bear ...
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