We’re about to see the final rise of history’s longest bull market, technical analyst says

Stocks will continue to push upward before a final break in the next few months, serving as the last throes of what will be the longest bull market in history. That is according to forecasts by technical analysts at ING, commenting on the S&P 500 hitting record levels this week. The 500-company benchmark index advanced 0.2 percent to close at 2,857.05 on Monday, and is now just under 0.6 percent from its record, reached in late January of this year. The fact that the market recently closed the downside January gap between 2,838 and 2,852 is “encouraging,” said Roelof-Jan van den Akker, ING’s senior technical analyst.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 will equal the longest U.S. bull market since World War II; on August 22, it will be the longest in history at nearly 3,500 days. Since its bear market low of 676 on March 9, 2009, its risen more than 320 percent, with major market movers like Netflix and Ulta Beauty up more than an eye-watering 5,500 percent. As the S&P is a market cap weighted index, the bigger the market cap, the more it can move markets. Other companies making up some of the index’s big gains are Amazon, which accounted for 4.1 percent of gains since 2009, followed by Microsoft, J.P. Morgan, General Electric and Wells Fargo.

Nonetheless, the analyst expected levels to inevitably come down, perhaps sooner rather than later. “I don’t think that this price move will be very sustainable. We could see a rise for a couple of months, but again this market is in its final stages of completing a larger top formation.”