Wall Street traders love to live by “truisms”, “clichés”, and/or “maxims”.  One such refrain that we constantly hear is that “Stocks can’t keep going up forever” but then there is “the trend is your friend” and “the market climbs a wall of worry”. When you put them all together what do you get? Should you worry about a top or should you be happy that others are still worried… because that means the top isn’t here yet? After-all, the market continues to climb until everyone has bought. If there are still bears out there, they are still potential buyers. On our NYSE Rate of Change page we published a couple of charts by “Chart of the Day” which showed the average length of rallies before a 15% and 20% decline. But if you take a longer term view, even a 15-20% correction could be inside a longer term bull market. 
In today’s post, Chris Ciovacco of Ciovacco Capital Management takes a look at the historical precedent for the current market.