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Where Are We Now?
Forty cyclical phases, six secular eras, 97 years of American market history. Every metric below is computed from daily S&P 500 closes against the full historical cohort.
Cyclical phases do not behave the same way inside different secular eras. A cyclical bull inside a secular bull compounds smoothly for years. A cyclical bull inside a secular bear can rally more than three hundred percent, as the 1932-1937 New Deal rally did, then die. A cyclical bear inside a secular bull is painful but short, averaging thirty-three percent and recovering within three years. A cyclical bear inside a secular bear is the deep decline of history: 1929-1932 at eighty-six percent, 1973-1974 at forty-eight percent, 2007-2009 at fifty-seven percent.
We are inside a Bull-in-Bull phase today. The AI boom, which began on October 12, 2022, is the ninth cyclical phase of the current secular bull. The analytical question is where it stands against the historical BIB cohort of cyclical bulls inside secular bulls. The answer is below.
Three sections of hard measurement follow: the four-quadrant anatomy table, the forty-phase scatter plot, and the current-phase percentile strips. Each number flows from the DB. No single reading is a timing signal. Together they form a diagnostic.
1. The Four Quadrants of Cyclical Behavior
Every cyclical phase in the dataset classified by whether it moves with the secular current or against it. The pattern is unmistakable.
With-current phases (Bull-in-Bull, Bear-in-Bear) are longer and smoother than their against-current counterparts. Bull-in-Bull phases median almost three years duration at nineteen percent nominal CAGR and a positive risk-adjusted return. Bear-in-Bull phases, which are the dips you buy, median under a year with a thirty-three-percent-ish drawdown and recover quickly.
Against-current phases are the traps. Bull-in-Bear rallies, like 1932-1937, produce extraordinary nominal gains that cannot be held because the secular drift reasserts itself. Bear-in-Bear phases produce the deep structural declines of history.
2. Every Cyclical Phase on One Chart
Each dot is one cyclical phase. X-axis: duration in years. Y-axis: nominal return. Dot size reflects the phase’s maximum intra-phase drawdown. The amber-outlined dot is the current phase (ongoing). Hover any dot for its full metrics.
3. The Three Secular Bulls, Indexed to 100 at Era Start
Log scale. Years-into-era on the X-axis. Where does the current bull sit against the two completed secular bulls at the same year of life?
All three curves start at 100 on day one of their secular bull. The current era (amber) is tracking between its two historical peers. Compounding tells the story more honestly than headlines do.
4. Volatility Signature of the Three Secular Bulls
Rolling 20-day realized volatility, annualized. All three secular bulls on the same chart, lined up by years into era. Shows regime shifts, crisis spikes, and the ambient vol baseline each era carried.
5. Current Cyclical Phase (AI Boom) vs the Bull-in-Bull Cohort
The AI boom (Phase 9 of the current secular bull, Oct 2022 → today) measured against all historical cyclical bulls inside secular bulls. Dots on each strip show where the current reading ranks in the historical distribution.
median: 3.2 y
cohort max: 12.3 y
median: +20.4%
cohort max: +53.4%
median: 11.8%
cohort max: 19.8%
median: 1.86
cohort max: 2.84
median: -10.6%
cohort max: -6.8%
median: 578 days
cohort max: 1709 days
What the strips say. The AI boom is above the historical median on duration (approaching four years, with the longest cyclical-bull-in-bull on record running twelve years in 1987-2000). Nominal CAGR is above median, consistent with other BIB phases that benefited from valuation expansion. Volatility is below the Bull-in-Bull median. Sharpe is on the high end but not extreme. Max drawdown within the phase (eighteen percent during the 2023 regional-bank crisis) is below the BIB median.
The phase is behaving like a successful mid-stage cyclical bull. Not an extreme reading, not a sell signal, not a buy signal. A diagnostic that says: compounding is working.
6. The Current Secular Era vs the Historical Bull Cohort
The 2013-present era measured against the two completed secular bulls (1949-1966 and 1982-2000). A smaller cohort, so the strips are noisier, but the direction is useful.
median: 17.1 y
cohort max: 17.6 y
median: +16.6%
cohort max: +16.9%
median: 13.0%
cohort max: 14.7%
median: -30.7%
cohort max: -28.0%
Era duration is below the two historical peers today (we are at 13.0 vs 17.0 and 18.0). The worst cyclical drawdown of the current era (-33.9% in COVID) is slightly deeper than the historical bull max (-33.5% in Black Monday 1987). The arithmetic says there is three-to-five years of normal bull-era runway left if we match the cohort, and the drawdown risk already absorbed matches what historical bulls carried across their entire lives.
7. The Six Secular Eras at a Glance
Horizontal bars show duration. Green are secular bulls, red are secular bears. The dashed outline marks the ongoing era. Hover for drawdowns and cyclical counts.
What the Numbers Add Up To.
The current secular bull is in its fourteenth year, slightly below the median historical bull-era duration. The worst cyclical drawdown the current era has absorbed (COVID, -33.9%) is already at the historical bull-era max. The current cyclical bull (AI boom) is approaching four years in and sits above the median duration for Bull-in-Bull phases but well below the historical maximum. Volatility is below the Bull-in-Bull median. Sharpe is in the top third. Max drawdown within this cyclical bull is below the median.
None of these readings is extreme. Several are moving toward the extremes. The historical pattern is that secular bulls end when valuation and momentum both reach stretch territory. We are stretched on valuation (CAPE elevated). We are not yet stretched on momentum.
The question is not whether a secular bear is coming. One always is. The question is whether this one is close, and the diagnostic above says: closer than three years ago, further than most sentiment indicators suggest. Compounding is still working. Position accordingly.
Walk the Secular Series
All trading involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This page measures historical patterns and provides diagnostic context; it does not constitute investment advice. Position sizing, risk management, and timing decisions remain the responsibility of the reader.