Happy birthday bull!

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post from our good friend Phil Rosen, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Opening Bell Daily, an independent financial news outlet. You can sign up for his free morning newsletter here.

Who’s ready to party?

The stock market’s bull run officially turns two on Saturday. For the record, the S&P 500 is up 61% since October 12, 2022, when the index hit its bear-market bottom at 3,577.03.

We’re about halfway through the median bull market of about 46 months, according to JPMorgan. So if this ends up being a typical upswing, investors have about 22 months of runway left.

Then again, there’s reason to believe things are going better than usual. Over the last two years, the benchmark index has recovered from sharp pullbacks on its way to scores of record highs.

In fact, about one in five trading days in 2024 have brought a new all-time close.

Not for nothing, equities have also proven resilient enough to keep climbing through the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive rate-hiking cycle in decades.

The broad cooldown in inflation helped keep investors enthused, too.

Barring a 40% crash before January, the S&P 500 is on pace to notch its second consecutive year of at least a 20% gain for the first time since 1998, according to Dow Jones data.

Will this bull market turn three years old?

Now, let’s be clear: Florida’s hurricanes, an intensifying Middle East conflict, and the fast-approaching presidential election all pose a risk for investors. At the same time, the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio — a measure that compares the price of a company to its future earnings estimates — has inched closer to “overvalued” territory this year.

In October 2022, the gauge hovered at 15. As the Yardeni Research team pointed out in a note Wednesday, that’s since jumped to 21.6 — spitting distance to the 25.5 seen in 1999 when the Dot-Com Bubble was still expanding.

That said, the stock market does appear to be getting less top-heavy. Wall Street considers a broadening market to be a healthier market.

• The equal-weighted S&P 500 outperformed the cap-weighted version in the third quarter.
• The Magnificent Seven’s influence on the index is shrinking.
• 85% of S&P 500 companies are in the green compared to a year ago.

“How long this bull will last is anyone’s guess, but we remain in the camp that looking out the next six to nine months we simply don’t see any reason to expect a recession or end of the bull market,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for Carson Group. “Will it last another three years? All we will say there is the odds are better than many expect.”—PR

We love bringing you a recap of the market’s biggest moves at the end of every trading day, but if you want to add some investing info to your mornings as well, we’d highly recommend Phil’s work at Opening Bell Daily.