Is the ASX 200 in a bull market or a bear market?

Is the ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) in a bull market or a bear market?

What are bull and bear markets?

People have come up with terms to try to describe the movement and mood of the share market. When the share market rises 20% it’s called a bull market. When the share market drops 20% it’s called a bear market.

Is the ASX 200 in a bull market or a bear market?

Starting from the week beginning 24 February 2020, the ASX 200 has dropped 24% (it was down 36% at one point). But from 23 March 2020 the ASX 200 was actually up 20.7% (not including today). Can both be right? I don’t think it really matters what you call it. It’s definitely volatile.

It seems quite clear that Australia is going to have painful recession, just like most of the rest of the world. Banks such as Westpac (ASX: WBC) are already warning that the upcoming profit result won’t be pretty.

But there is still optimism in the market. And investors are still finding exciting long term ideas.

Share markets don’t move in a consistent, steady decline. The drop tends to be fast and the rise is like going up stairs. We can see from past recessions that the share market will regularly have periods of growth.

Investors need to look (hear?) through the noise and find those shares that are good value because it’s impossible to predict what share prices will do. What are some opportunities today? I think shares like WHSP (ASX: SOL), Bubs (ASX: BUB), EML Payments (ASX: EML) and even travel business Webjet (ASX: WEB) could be a cheap opportunity.

The best ideas of all could be tech shares like these:

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Disclosure: at the time of publishing, Jaz owns shares of WHSP, but this could change at any time.