From the October 12, 2007 S&P500 high of 1561.80, the market corrected over a period of 11 months to 1255.07 on September 19, 2008, down 306.73 or 19.6%, just shy of bear territory.
Did we believe it would continue lower? No.
Then over the next 5.5 months the market crashed another 45.6%, 571.69 points, to 683.38 on March 6, 2009 (and fully 28% in less than a month between September 19th and October 10th, 2008).
The total decline was 878.42 points, or 56.2%, and took 16.5 long months to unfold.
After all that did we believe it had bottomed? No, in large part because by Thanksgiving 2008 the carnage seemed to be over, but it wasn't: From 800.03 on November 21 the market went on to lose another 14.6% over the next 3.5 months. At that point it was very hard to believe it was over.
The three dead cat bounces on October 31st at 968.75, January 2nd at 931.80 and February 6th at 868.60 tortured the hopeful all the way down.
