Yet while optimists might welcome news that the current bull run is four-and-a-half years old, "only three out of the past 15 bull markets have lasted five years or longer, with the average surviving only 3.4 years," according to Jim Stack, editor of the InvesTech Market Analyst newsletter, in U.S. News & World Report .
What's more, "even that's distorted by the longevity of the 1990s bull," the magazine writes. "The median length of a bull market-- the statistical point where an equal number last longer or shorter-- is only 2.6 years."
The current bull market has also been unusually correction-free. Despite the swoon that took place two months ago, share prices have yet to experience a typical, but healthy, pullback. According to the International Herald Tribune , again citing the research of Mr. Stack, "the past four years have been the second-longest period during which the S&P 500 has gone without a 10 percent correction (the longest was a six-year stretch in the 1990s)."
