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More on the rapid launch of bull markets

This is in follow-up to Mark's post (below) regarding Ken Fisher's research on how bear markets end. In a recent Forbes article, Fisher discussed what the historical record shows with regard to how bull markets begin:

When the market rebounds, a lot of its gains will take place in a very short span (like two months or less), and people who are too cautious will miss most of these gains.

Bear markets have been typically followed by bull markets in a V-shaped pattern. The steeper and bigger the decline, the sharper and bigger the subsequent bull move. The few exceptions to this pattern in the past century have involved the emergence of completely different bad forces than the ones that created and contributed to the bear market.

For example, stocks rallied 324% from July 1932 to March 1937. After a recession-induced big bear market and partial recovery over the next 21 months, stocks encountered an entirely new kind of trouble in 1939. War in Europe sent the market down even lower than the recessionary low of early 1938.

That could happen again, with the economic equivalent of an asteroid coming out of the blue. But, absent such a surprise, we should get the normal V pattern. Its upward swing will swamp any late-stage bear market vicissitudes as they always do.

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