I’m not seeing 8 or 9 years of secular bear market in this chart
must be something wrong with my eyes …[/quote]
Nothing wrong with your eyes, just focused very narrowly. The Dow is a narrow measure. And by that measure you are correct, the secular bear is not apparent in the DOW. But your chart still shows a bear market from 2000-2003, it is visually de-emphasized though, by plotting from zero on a linear scale.
A secular bear in the broad market (e.g. S&P 500 or Wilshire 5000) is apparent by the fact that each cyclical bear results in a new lower low.
The current bear will likely result in lows lower than the supposed bear market that ended in 2003.
So, maybe I am ahead of myself, but history will judge the current secular bear as starting in 2000.
