I'll risk ridicule & call for a raging BULL MARKET till Feb 8th 2016 at least...

Main reason - Such relentless declines since the beginning of the year have almost always been followed by a huge snapback rally, for example, in crisis year 1998 when Singapore's Straits Times Index fell from 1,530 to 1,050 in first 9 trading sessions of the year then rebounded back to 1,700 by late Feb.


Subsidiary reasons :

- Remaining shareholders will be reluctant to dump at these recessed prices ( witness the low volume currently) even if they foresee something HORRIBLE later in the year. They would prefer to sell on intermittent rallies, which they will engineer to some extent, to the uninformed public.

- Oil, the main protagonist in the worldwide asset (ex bonds, yen & dollar) declines seems to have formed a multi-month bottom at $27, mainly due to the 'crowded trade' effect. A good foundation has thus been laid for a temporary bottom in stocks.

- Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices have formed a temporary double bottom(Aug-Jan).


- Ultra-bearish sentiments currently have accurately indicated a temporary bottom in the past.


- Russia's stock index forges higher this morning    ( by 1.61%) at the time of posting despite crude oil's 2-3% drop back below the $31 level currently.