marketwatch.com —
in the investment arena have been drawing analogies to the 1930s for several years now, of course. While such speculation died down somewhat when the market was behaving well in 2010 and early this year, it has returned with a gusto in recent weeks, owing to the stock market’s extraordinary weakness — including another 3.5% decline on Thursday of this week alone for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .
But drawing analogies is more of an art than a science, especially when you are picking and choosing from a decade like the 1930s. Contrary to the popular imagination, which regards that decade as one unremitting horror show, the 1930s actually contained one of U.S. history’s most powerful bull markets.
So, depending on how you draw an analogy between today’s market and the 1930s, you can paint either a very bullish or an extremely bearish picture.
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