We're In The Midst Of The Third-Greatest Bull Run Of All Time

By the end of this week, the post-Financial Crisis bull market will likely become the second longest bull market in history. It has now been 2,603 days since the S&P bottomed back in 2009. In that time, the market has surged an astonishing 209 percent.

Going into this week, the current bull market is only four days short of the duration of the great bull market of 1949 to 1956. Incredibly, the current bull market would need to carry on for more than five additional years to become the longest bull market in history. The longest bull market in history, which began in 1987 and ended with the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble in 2000, lasted an unprecedented 4,495 days.

Of course, the bull market has been anything but impressive in the past year, delivering a -1.2 percent return. Some traders believe that the market is consolidating in preparation for another surge higher, while others are fearful that the bull market has finally reached its end and a bear market has already begun.

The S&P 500 will not officially enter a bear market until it has dropped 20 percent below its all-time high of 2,134.72 established in mid-2015. That 20 percent level rests at around 1,707.

So far this year, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) has bounced back 2.1 percent.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.