While many will remember 1982 for its disco and the movie E.T., it is perhaps best known by an investing public as the end of a 16 year secular bear market. The 10% decline from 1966 was better, however, than the 38% loss from 1937 to 1941 and the 80% loss from 1929-1932 but together this triumvirate make up the secular bear markets. Luckily, as IceCap's Keith Dicker notes, for most of the investment industry they can gloss over these extended loss periods and instead focus on the long-run secular bull markets (cue Jeremy Siegel). However, he points out that unknown to many and ignored by the rest, "we are in the middle of another long and dragged out Secular Bear Market which has seen investors lose 7% since the year 2000 - that's 12 years of hopes for nothing." Understanding secular markets and how they transition from BULL to BEAR is perhaps the most rewarding investment perspective you won’t hear from anyone else. While financial markets continue to yo-yo with our retirements, the truth is, the next Secular BULL Market is not quite ready to perk its head up just yet as Dicker addresses P/E ratios during inflationary and deflationary periods summing up his view of the world rather succinctly: "As central banks continue to bail out banks and countries, they implicitly create an investment culture whereby failure is rewarded and success is taxed to reward those who failed."
IceCap Asset Management Limited Global Markets April 2012 [4]