The value for R was 1885 on July 31, 2013.

Progress Update on Secular Bear Market

Over the May through July period I gradually shifted out of stocks as the S&P 500 reached the upper 1550-1600 period. I sold by last position last month when the index was in the low 1600's. The P/R graph above shows that the market has reached roughly the same position relative to past secular bear markets as it had in 2007. There is still room to rise and the current bull market will likely run quite a bit longer, particularly as the length of the current business cycle, at least than 6 years, is still quite short. I had made a similar argument in December 2007, and was wrong. So this time I decided to sell as soon as P/R indicates a relatively overvalued market.

The bet I am making is that there will be another downturn as there was in the past and this downturn will send P/R below its previous low of 0.49. If I assume the next downturn will have happened by 2020, seven years from now, I can extrapolate the R growth curve to estimate a value of about 2550 then, which when multiplied by 0.49 gives a value of 1250 for the next bottom, well below today's levels, at which to move back into stocks.