Stock-market bears are on the endangered-species list. More and more are morphing into bulls, including Interest Rate Observer publisher James Grant who says the deeper the slump the zipper the recovery (hat tip to Canadian Capitalist).

What continues to impresses is how this market rally has climbed one of the tallest walls of worry in ages. The discrepancy between Mr. Market and commentary from analysts and journalists is a yawning chasm indeed. Is this the usual pattern seen at the start of bull market rallies or is Mr. ...

I’m told there were five rallies of 20% or more during the worst bear market in history from late 1929 to mid-1933. Will the rally of the past six weeks similarly give way? Or is it going to be like the Big Rally in the summer months of 1933, when ...

On a day like today, as stocks plummet further below their November lows, it’s hard to blame investors for failing to “be greedy when others are fearful,” as Warren Buffett advises. Buying into this market would feel like throwing money into a meat grinder. Indeed, it may be enough of ...

Despite doubts earlier expressed about the stock-market rally off November lows and the resilience of bank stocks, it nonetheless is disconcerting to watch their collapses. At times like these it helps to have a sanctuary, a quiet place to regain perspective.

Ativa.com has some interesting calculators that show the impact of diversification during bear markets and bear/bull cycles. Let’s take a look at them, as a supplement to my column on financial calculators. According to Activa's diversification calculators, a portfolio diversified equally over stocks, bonds and cash during the bear market from ...

"Unless you can watch your stock holdings decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market." Warren Buffett 

The rebound off market bottoms is usually explosive for small caps. Their average gain in the year following the past seven bear markets surpassed 30%, writes Viking Capital CEO John Sartz in the Nov. 21 edition of Investor’s Digest of Canada.

On Friday, Nov. 14, stock markets were on their way to confirming a bottom to the bear market but got blindsided by another wave of forced selling by mutual/hedge funds in the last hour.

Markets rallied vigorously on Thursday, Nov. 13, for no other reason than they were testing their lows of Oct. 10. There is a belief among many traders and technical analysts that bear market bottoms retest their lows before beginning a sustained rally, and this belief was what largely caused the major ...