Has it bottomed? How low will it go?

l am estimating it will go to 7,000 which is about half of its high. That is about the percent it declined in 1973-74, but not nearly as much as it declined in the 1930s.

just a minute, l will go get my crystal ball.lol

Some say to 7500 others say we are going back up for a 20-30% rise.

Do not believe em! All the talking heads do not know.

We have probably seen the bottom. We are 12 months into a bear market. Bear markets seldom hit 14 months. If we do go lower, it will test the old low of 7800, lowest it can go is 7200. Be prepared for the bulls to charge. Remember, Oct. historically is the most volatile month of the year.

It is interesting how may people miss the ''macro'' cycles in markets. The one poster said bear markets do not last more than 12 months. On a micro cycle scale maybe, but many fail to take in the long term cycles, the secular bull & bear cycles. The Dow runs on a roughly 17 year secular cycle (+/- a year or so). From 1949 to 1966 was a 17 year secular bull. From 1966 to 1982 was a 16 year secular bear. From 1982 to 2000 was an 18 year secular bull. In keeping with the long term cycle, we r only 8 years into a secular bear market, so we probably have 8-10 years left in this secular bear market.

Do not think just because a market rallies that we r in a long term bull market. Bear markets r punctuated with bear market rallies/counter-trends.

Major support is at 7200, but that does not mean it will go that low & stop. What many fail to realize is that when there has been a speculative bubble in a market, that the market tends to give back 90% to 100% of all the gains of the previous run up, this can be seen throughout history, i.e, the tulip bubble mania, South Seas bubble, the '29 crash (market lost 89% of its value).

If u look at the previous secular bull which ran from 1982 to 2000, the market went from 772 to 11,722. Add to the fact that we r now in a Kondratiev (Kondratieff) winter phase (declining market), there is very much a possibility at we will see that Dow end up in the 1,000 point range when we finally hit bottom. We have also seen the top in the Grand Super-Cycle, so the probability (and l concur with this) is that the Dow will drop back into the 1,000 range when we finally hit bottom. Considering we r only 1/2 way through the current secular bear, the economy/markets/credit markets r coming apart, we r in the Kondratiev winter cycles, it is not out of the question to see the Dow really get pummelled. It may take several years to reach bottom.

It is okay to look at bull/bear markets on a micro scale, but it is dangerous to not consider the macro scale & that is where most investors get burned. I've heard people say, ''Hey, the market came back after the '87 crash & after the '98 crash with the Russian debt default, so it will come back again''. The problem with that line of thinking is that we were still in a secular bull market during those two incidents. The secular bull completed in 2000. Also, what many investors fail to realize is that the Dow (in June or July of this year) finally broke below a 34 year upward sloping trend line. That is a major incident. That trend line was intact since 1974, which means, that during the last half of the secular bear market, the '87 crash, the '98 crash, the 40% decline & bottom in 2002, the Dow NEVER broke below that trend line. It just recently did & from a technical standpoint, that should be sending all kinds of red flags up.

Ultimately no one knows how low the Dow will go, but with the current cycles in play, it would be dangerous to assume it will ONLY go down to 7200 or ONLY last 12 months. Also, one must remember that when markets ''correct they tend to OVER correct, which means they will shoot past their proper valuation levels before stabilizing.

l personally think we will see the Dow give up 90% of it is total value before this is over & down. It may not happen till 2015 or so.