The chart of the week looks at bear markets over the last 70 years and compares them to the current market environment. Over that time, the average bear market lasted 12 months with an average decline of 30%. Let’s compare that to our current bear market that has lasted 9 months with a loss of 25% on the S&P 500. While this bear market feels different possibly because of what has caused it and the types of investments that have been affected, thus far it is pretty average. The big question moving forward is, have we reached our bottom? And if the recovery has begun, should we expect the long-term average recovery time of 19 months?