| The black line shows the Nikkei bear market that
started on January 1st, 1990. That bear market is still
grinding on. In fact, the Nikkei just made new lows more than 11 years
after this bear market started.
The magenta line is the Nasdaq bear market that started
on March 11th, 2000.
A few explanations about this chart. The lines
show the percentage drop from the highs made before each bear market
started.
The numbers across the bottom are the number of
days that have passed since the market top.
As you can see, the current Nasdaq bear market is a
newbie compared to the Nikkei bear. It took 2,669 trading days for the
Nikkei to fall from the highs on 12/29/89 to the lows on 3/5/01. In
that time, the Nikkei has fallen 68.3%.
Here is a quick comparison of the current Nasdaq
bear market and the Nikkei bear market:
| |
Percent
decline |
Length
(in days) |
| Nikkei
Bear |
-68.3% |
2669
days |
| 2000-02
(so far) |
-73.1% |
579 days |
The length is measured from the high to the
low. The percent decline is on a closing basis, from the high to
the low. Clearly, the Nikkei
bear market has been devastating, especially in its length. Our
current Nasdaq bear market has surpassed the Nikkei in terms
of percentage decline...but let's just hope that we aren't still
looking for a bottom for the current bear market in 2012! Let's
take a closer look at this comparison to the Nikkei bear market...this
is a much shorter time frame, covering just over a year's time: |
