When does a bull market become a bear market? We can't predict the turning point. We can't even define the up-bull or the down-bear trend. It is widely presumed that the U.S. has been in a bull market since the the bad old days of early 2009. Equities have advanced: Apple is up 980 percent in the six years since, or, did Apple's bull market start in October 2004 or, for that matter, June 2013? About all we can say is bell-curve mathiness is less helpful when the slope up is similar to the slope down. History, fancy math, and brutal experience suggest the bear market slope down is steeper than the bull slope upward. ... (full story)