请注意:
这是一个月之前发表在华尔街日报上的一篇"旧文"。一个月之后再次阅读,有些内容仍然有一定参考价值。
美股本轮下挫速度令乐观人士难乐观
2010-6-14 华尔街日报 BY E.S. BROWNING
回顾一下历史，会证实很多投资者对市场最近动荡的感觉：相比下挫的规模，最令人震惊的是下挫的速度。
道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数从4月26日至6月7日的仅仅42个交易日中，从最高点下跌了12.4%。标准普尔500 指数在45个交易日中从最高点跌了13.7%。
80年来，仅有的另外一次道琼斯指数在经济复苏早期下挫如此严重、如此迅速的时候是在1950年朝鲜战争时。据研究公司Ned Davis Research为《华尔街日报》做的一份研究，当时道琼斯指数在31个交易日中，从峰值到谷底跌了13.6%。股市于1950年反弹，然后持续了为期10年的一轮牛市。
今年春季，股市下挫被归咎于对欧洲债务危机和墨西哥湾石油泄漏的担心。市场被证明如此脆弱，这样的事实甚至让一些乐观的分析人士也怀疑麻烦是否可能比人们认为的还要严重。
Ned Davis首席投资策略师海耶斯(Tim Hayes)说，这次的调整比我们认为的更加复杂。
上周末，股市确实上扬了。海耶斯说，他跟踪的很多指标显示，最近的下挫或许只是个令人不快的插曲，随后会有更多的上涨。尽管如此，市场的脆弱让他心存怀疑。
他承认，我们现在可能实际上处于熊市。如果是这样，股市将再度下挫，根据最常见的定义，道琼斯指数将较4月份的高点继续下挫至少20%。
在4月份的高点之前，道琼斯指数较2009年3月9日的低点涨了71%，这在股市历史上是类似规模的上涨中速度最快的一次。
一些分析人士将目前的回调与1983年底开始的幅度达15.6%的调整相提并论。当时的调整发生在从1982年至2000年长时间的股市上涨开始之际，最终却是令人痛苦的一闪而过。这两次的差别在于，1983至1984年的调整发生得较缓慢，持续了八个月之久。
一些人说，这次调整中电子交易可能起了作用，电子交易会造成异常的动荡。
研究公司Bespoke Investment Group在一项研究中考察了1927年以来标准普尔500指数下跌了10%及以上的所有情况。其中有40次标准普尔500指数的跌幅等于或大于最近13.7%的跌幅。
大多数情况下（有25次），股市持续下挫，陷入熊市，意味着跌幅达到20%及以上。不过，仍有相当数量的情况（15次），跌势没有加重成为熊市。
Bespoke创始人之一沃尔特斯(Justin Walters)说，与大部分调整相比，此次调整发生地很快。
跌幅越大，越有可能变成熊市。和海耶斯一样，沃尔特斯说，他预计这次股市不会陷入熊市。不过他说，根据历史数据来看，如果股市再次下挫，触及新低，陷入熊市的可能就真的很高了。
笔者注:换句话说,如果真的出现那种情况,"市场的底"(若换用love阳光的大方指数的话)将很有可能会低于10,甚至低于5 ...,请大家对潜在的风险给予特别的关注!!!
Rapid Declines Rattle Even Optimists
Previous Stock Slides Driven by Invasions and Other Unsettling World Events; Bear Market Ahead?
JUNE 14, 2010
BY E.S. BROWNING
A look at history confirms something many investors had felt about the market's recent turmoil: It is the speed of the declines, even more than the size, that has been most shocking.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12.4% in just 42 days from the peak on April 26 through June 7. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 13.7% in 45 days from its peak.
The only other time in 80 years that the Dow has fallen that far, that fast so early in an economic rebound was in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea to start the Korean War. Then, the Dow fell 13.6% in 31 days from peak to trough, according to a study done for The Wall Street Journal by Ned Davis Research. Stocks recovered in 1950 and remained in a bull market for another decade.
This spring, the stock decline has been blamed on things like fears of spreading debt woes in Europe and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, severe problems but somehow less bone-chilling than a Communist invasion. The fact that the market has proved so fragile has made even some optimistic analysts wonder whether the troubles might be deeper than people had believed.
"This correction has had more legs than we thought," says Tim Hayes, Ned Davis's chief investment strategist.
At the end of last week, stocks did rally. Mr. Hayes says the many indicators he tracks tell him the recent downdraft is probably a nasty interlude to be followed by more gains. Still, the market's vulnerability has left him with doubts.
"We could actually be in a bear market now," he acknowledges. If so, stocks would resume their declines and, by the most common definition, the Dow would continue down to at least 20% from the April high.
Before the April swoon, the Dow had been up 71% from its low on March 9, 2009, one of the fastest rallies of that size in market history.
To see how the recent declines stack up with past ones, Ned Davis Research looked at all pullbacks of 10% or more during periods when the economy was in the first 18 months of recovery from recession, as it is now. Normally, that is a strong period for stocks: The study found that rapid declines are rare in such a period and tend to be associated with unsettling world events.
In 1955, the Dow fell 10% in 18 days—a smaller decline than today's, but a sharp one. It came at the time of President Dwight Eisenhower's heart attack, which shocked the country. To find a similarly large decline in a short period, one has to go back to 1928, when the inflated stock market wavered less than a year before the 1929 crash.
It isn't common for stocks to go into a bear market so soon after an economic recovery has begun, but it isn't unprecedented. It happened in 1962, at the end of the long 1950s bull market. In 2002, stocks fell more than 31%, during the Enron and WorldCom scandals. That was another period when stocks rallied after a long bear market and then hit trouble, a double dip that shattered investors' confidence. In 2002, the rally ran out of steam and the bear market resumed, although the rally in 2001-2002 wasn't nearly as long or as large as the one the market has just experienced. Much like 2002, the recent decline has also alarmed many individual investors who had only just begun to regain their appetite for stocks.
Stocks also went into bear markets in the early phases of economic recoveries in the 1930s and 1940s, a period of economic and international unrest.
Some analysts compare the current pullback with a 15.6% correction that began late in 1983. That one came at the beginning of a long period of stock strength that ran from 1982 through 2000, and turned out to be no more than a painful blip. The difference is that the 1983-1984 correction happened slowly, over eight months.
Some say that electronic trading may be playing a part this time by contributing to exceptional volatility, because hundreds of millions of shares can change hands in minutes. Once, it was highly unusual for 90% of stocks to be up or down on any single day. In recent years, as computers have come to dominate trading, it has become much more common.
Bespoke Investment Group did a study looking at all declines of 10% or more in the S&P 500 since 1927. Those include 40 cases in which the S&P 500 fell as much as, or more than, its recent 13.7% decline.
In 25 cases, the majority, stocks continued down and wound up in a bear market, meaning a decline of 20% or more. But there was still a significant minority of cases, 15, in which the declines stopped short of a bear market.
"This correction has happened very fast compared to most corrections," says Justin Walters, Bespoke's co-founder.
The deeper a decline gets, the higher the odds it will become a bear market. Like Mr. Hayes, Mr. Walters says he expects stocks to avoid a bear market this time. But if stocks turn down again and "we hit a new low, the odds are really high that we will go into a bear market, based on the historical numbers," he says.
One reason that analysts such as Mr. Walters and Mr. Hayes expect stocks to recover is that they were looking particularly strong shortly before the April declines.
Almost 30% of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange hit new highs in March, the most since 2003, Mr. Hayes says. The market turned down just one week after the percentage of new highs peaked in mid-April.
It is rare for stocks to go from such broad strength directly into a bear market. It usually takes indexes weeks to begin a decline after individual stocks begin fading. The only time a bear-market decline began a week after a peak in new highs was in March 2002, and many analysts consider that downturn the continuation of an old bear marketrather than the start of a new one.
Bearish analysts worry that the market's recent weakness is a sign that the world's debt and unemployment problems may be too severe to keep the stock market moving higher. But Richard Sylla, professor of economics and financial history at New York University's Stern School of Business, says he feels optimistic about the market.
His research shows that horrible decades like the past one tend to be followed by better periods for stocks. It is normal for stocks to rally when unemployment is high, before the economy is fully back on its feet, he says. He says corporations have cut their debt and improved cash positions and profits.
Prof. Sylla says he put some of his personal savings back into stocks early this month. He didn't put all his cash to work, however, and says he would consider buying more stocks if prices fall more. Although it could take more time, he says, he thinks better days are ahead for stocks."After 10 bad years, I think the next 10 years will look pretty good," he says.
Write to E.S. Browning at jim.browning@wsj.com
