By Anne Kates Smith
From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
What the bull giveth, the bear taketh away. Investors who thought the bear market might be over after summer’s strong gains got a reminder this fall that bear market rallies can be exhilarating but fleeting.
Following a 24 percent drop from the record high in January through mid-June, the S&P 500 index rallied 17 percent through mid-August, only to fall again, under-cutting its June low.
Welcome to phase two of the bear market, says Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. We could be entering what is often the longest phase in the market’s bottoming process, notable for the kinds of zigs and zags we’ve been living through….