The bear shows its claws

In the past 20 trading sessions up to 24 May, there have been eight up days and 12 down days as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The net decline was 4.2%. This is the kind of market action you see in a traditional bear market. An old-fashioned bear does not stab you with a sword, as in the crash of 1987 and the mini-crash of 1989. It nicks you with a thousand cuts. I doubt there will be stock market crash in this decade because investors have been trained to buy the dips. But we could see a year or two in which stocks rise two days a week and decline for three days. In other w...