Avoiding Bear Markets
There have been three bear markets in the S&P 500 total return since 1970 where the maximum loss has exceeded 40%. In September of 1974, the loss was -42.64%. In September of 2002 the loss was -44.73% and in February of 2009, the loss was -50.95%. Are there any common characteristics of these tops prior to these bear markets which would have allowed us to avoid suffering the subsequent terrible losses. Below is a plot of the normalized performance four years prior to the ma