The quote " Daylight follows darkness" is by William O Neil in his book HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN STOCKS page 238 second paragraph, third edition. According to William O Neil bear markets can last from 3 months to 2 years ( some rare cases) and when they come back after forming a deep cup shaped pattern they skyrocket to greater highs. That is exactly whats happening to the daily charts of DJIA, NDX, SPX, BIDU, AAPL, GOOG and other major stocks. During periods of utter hopelessness and doom and gloom these shorts and bears tore apart these charts in the hopes of an incoming recession, which sadly never materialized. So these charts started building the right side of the cup and are now leveling off forming nice dropped down handles. These handles can take 1-2 weeks and the volumes completely drops off, which is a very constructive thing for the long run. Dont be afraid of this volume drying up in major tech stocks and NDX specially. Investors Business Daily has 50 years of such data and the biggest money is made when these heart aching periods are followed up bull markets and tons of money lies on the floor to be picked up right and left. Do not let this doom and gloom club influence you at all. Thier job is to find any weakness and sell short and they have taken huge losses as of late. Some of the nefarious idiots have lost account values doing just that but like fools they will keep trying. WE are coming off a downturn, the economy has slowed down, but there is no recession on the horizon, we had our share of weak market activity, not a bear market but a downtrend or a steep correction and now we are building the right side of the cup shaped pattern and once that's completed most likely it will breakout to the upside. Sometimes there are failures in these breakouts and shorts will pounce on any such weakness and gouge you. Be careful and keep you stops tight. Have some faith, our Federal government has done all it can to help you and they get high marks for their competence. I think Bernanke did an excellent job, slashing rates but he did that too aggressively and the rates should not be cut further at this point. There is always daylight after darkness and here is your moment so go grab it.
Good overall perspective, but 50 years is not nearly long enough and it doesn't get you back to 1929. 300 years is probably wishful thinking, but that is what makes more statistical relevance. The Fed can provide nearly infinite amount of liquidity but they do so at the risk of out of control inflation and what they are doing right now is just buying time. There is no reason to guess either way. As a consumer and at the Fed, you hope the market stabilizes and we consume our way out of this possible recession with higher economic growth and higher stock indices. As a trader, you just wait and watch for breaks in either direction at the supports and resistances. If you are grabbing at anything, make sure it is not straws.