Weighing the Risk

Article Excerpt

My guess is that we are now closer to the end of a market downturn than the start of one. However, you need to distinguish between the two main kinds of market downturn. One is the stereotypical bear market — the kind of long-term decline that drags on for a year or more and is generally accompanied by a painful recession and a deep fall in stock prices. Our last bear market took place after the 1990s Internet boom went bust, from mid-2000 through the last quarter of 2002. In that period, the Toronto index fell from 11,300 to 5,800. The other type of downturn, the so-called correction, may also be accompanied by a recession, and can also do a lot of damage to stock prices. However, a correction generally ends in less than a year — sometimes a lot less. You may recall the so-called ‘Asian contagion’ correction of the late 1990s. It grew out of an economic crisis that began in 1997…