I analyzed 25+ years of #Nifty data to better understand bear markets 🐻

Why?

Given the recent market sell-off and bearish stance of market participants, history and data is your best guide to prepare if we're headed for a bear market.

Thread with findings below 🧵👇
1/n

But first, do you know the definition of a bear market?

When any index falls 20% or more from it's all time high, it is termed to be in a #bearmarket 🐻

How do you calculate length of a bear market? The time duration in days from previous all-time high to market bottom.

2/n
🇮🇳 Nifty last 25 years (1997-2022*)

Number of Bear Markets = 8

Average drawdown % = -38.5%

Average bear market duration = 246 days (8 m)

Key takeaway - Bear markets occur every ~3 years and take on average 8 months to bottom

3/n
1997 and 2006 saw the fastest bear markets with Nifty correcting 20-30% in just ~1 month.

Unbelievably, 1997 had 2 bear markets! Just imagine suffering 20% drawdowns twice in a few months!

Mar 2020 Covid crash was the 3rd fastest and 3rd worst bear market.

4/n
Okay, how should we define Bear Market Recovery?

The no of days from market bottom to a new all-time high.

Sadly, bear markets take time to recover.

Almost double the time to recover to a new ATH compared to the time to form a bottom.

Avg recovery duration – 495 days

5/n
Every cloud has a silver lining.

495 days or 16 months is the avg bear market recovery duration but they have been as short as 78 days (1997) or 138 days (2006).

5 out of 8 bear markets recovered within 8 months

Takeaway – Most bear markets recover within a year
6/n
Bull Markets 🐂 have Bear Phases 🐻

We have all heard about 2003-07 bull market.

Nifty went ~7x in 5 years

April 2003 - 920
Jan 2008 - 6357

But even one of India's biggest bull markets had 2 bear markets in 2004 and 2006.

Bull markets never go up in a straight line.

7/n
Key Question - So do you need to wait ~3 years for a bear market to buy equities?

The answer to this question has gradually changed in the past 25 years.

Between 1997-2013, the market was in bear market territory every single year barring just 2 years.

8/n
You will hardly believe the next insight given how strong India's markets have been in the recent past.

But in a span of 17 years between 1997-2013, our markets spent close to ~50% time in bear market (20%+ decline) territory.

9/n
However, since 2013 🇮🇳 markets have been extremely resilient with just 2 bear markets in 9 years.

Complete opposite to above chart, Nifty has spent 50% time in last 9 years near ATHs.

And spent just 4% time in bear market territory

10/n
In the last 8.5 years, markets have corrected ~15% every other year and I cannot predict if the 25-30% frequent drawdowns between 1997-2013 will become the norm anytime soon.

So, 15%+ declines from ATH can be used as a good metric to increase equity allocation in my view.

11/n
This thread took me 15+ hours of research and writing, so please retweet if you find it useful.

I will create a separate thread for bear markets in small caps if this thread gets enough traction.

Summary and Learnings of last 25 years of Bear Markets in 🇮🇳👇

12/n
Bear Market Summary

1. 🐻 occurs every ~3 years and avg 8 months to bottom

2. 🇮🇳 has only seen 2 bear markets in last 9 years

3. 🐻 recoveries take double the time (16 months)

4. Bull 🐂 markets can have multiple 🐻 phases

5. Increase equity allocation on 15%+ declines

END

More from Trading

TradingView isn't just charts

It's much more powerful than you think

9 things TradingView can do, you'll wish you knew yesterday: 🧵

Collaborated with @niki_poojary

1/ Free Multi Timeframe Analysis

Step 1. Download Vivaldi Browser

Step 2. Login to trading view

Step 3. Open bank nifty chart in 4 separate windows

Step 4. Click on the first tab and shift + click by mouse on the last tab.

Step 5. Select "Tile all 4 tabs"


What happens is you get 4 charts joint on one screen.

Refer to the attached picture.

The best part about this is this is absolutely free to do.

Also, do note:

I do not have the paid version of trading view.


2/ Free Multiple Watchlists

Go through this informative thread where @sarosijghosh teaches you how to create multiple free watchlists in the free


3/ Free Segregation into different headers/sectors

You can create multiple sections sector-wise for free.

1. Long tap on any index/stock and click on "Add section above."
2. Secgregate the stocks/indices based on where they belong.

Kinda like how I did in the picture below.

You May Also Like

I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x