04/09/2025
There have been 4 instances in the past decade where SPX made a significant pullback. 3 out of the 4 pullbacks have exceeded a 20% drop, which indicated a transition into a bear market cycle. Unsurprisingly, the pullback today is at roughly 20%, with the potential of going lower. But how low can it go?
Historically, all 4 pullbacks came very close to or penetrated below the 50-period Simple Moving Average (SMA) level on a monthly chart, and it seems that we're approaching our 5th. So it may be reasonable to assume some sort of buying pressure lined up around such a level, which is 4672.58. The price pullback now is at the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, historically a common depth of retracement before a rebound pursues. From this evidence, along with some other indicators (e.g., Williams % R, Money Flow Index) not pictured here, the market seems to be coming close to some buying level. However, this just means that there's a high chance buyers will start accumulating shares soon, but does not mean that the market is guaranteed to exit the bear market phase.
If SPX indeed bottoms at around the 50-period SMA support level, how much longer does it need in order to recover back to its pre-retracement level? It's again reasonable to take the 21.74% and the 35.07% retracements as references, not only because of their similar drop magnitude and support levels, but because of the abruptness of their drops. Historically, the closer the price drops at a 90-degree angle, the faster their rebound - generally the duration of recovery is similar to the duration of pullback (Terry Laundry, T Theory, 2008). For instance, if this pullback takes 7 weeks to bottom, then it's likely to take 7 weeks to recover. At least, this seems to be the nature of market moves.