The S&P 500’s current secular bull market has become an outlier by its own history. As of September 2026, the advance that began at the 2009 low is described as 17.4 years old and up 1,073%, a scale that pushes it well past the long-run averages used to frame the S&P 500 CAPE ratio history.
That is why the market is drawing attention now. Since March 2009, the S&P 500 has already absorbed five declines of roughly 20% or more, yet the broader trend has kept advancing, leaving investors to weigh a cycle that has lasted far longer than normal against one that is still climbing.
The comparison with the past is stark. Going back to 1880, there have been seven secular bear markets, and they lasted 6.7 years on average with an average drawdown of 52.7%. Secular bull markets over the same span lasted 11.2 years on average and gained 675%. On those measures, the current bull market, which the report says has lasted 17 years and now stands at 17.4 years as of September 2026, sits well outside the historical range.
That gap is what makes the debate so uneasy. On one side, the market looks stretched against more than 150 years of secular trends. On the other, the wave count since the 2009 low still points to a standard five-wave pattern, and the preferred reading is an ending diagonal, a structure that can still allow for more upside before the larger move is complete.
For investors in the S&P 500, that leaves a narrow but important conclusion. The current advance is not being judged against a normal bull market anymore; it is being judged against a historical extreme. The next move that matters may not be the one that extends the rally, but the correction that tests whether this secular run is finally near its end.
