'Worst Bear Market' Of Our Lifetime To Begin In 2026? | Michael Oliver

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**Michael Oliver** (0:40)
For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery. I think that the downside break we're going to see in the stock market that finally convinces people, oops, is not going to show up until early next year. That between now and then the market will labor, might have some sell-off, but I don't think it's going to be horrendous if it does. Or it could just dawdle around here. More laborious action. That's the way we see it. I think it's topping, it's a process, be patient. It's not the place to be. And you'll see the real breakage starting sometime in the first quarter next year. Yeah, no, I think it's going to be different in a way that the bear market you see is worse than we've seen before. But otherwise, the pattern we're talking about is you've nailed it here.

**Adam Taggart** (1:30)
Okay. And I'm sorry, you said it's going to be different because the bear market that might happen this time will be what? Worse? Is that what you said?

**Michael Oliver** (1:35)
Far worse. I think the economic outcome will be far worse as well.

**Adam Taggart** (1:45)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. Last week saw a big reversal that jarred Wall Street. After reporting yet again blockbuster results and upgrading its forecast, Nvidia's stock first rose 6% and then fell to close the day down 3%.
This dragged the major indices down with it, along with most of the high growth tech stocks as well. Suddenly, Wall Street started panicking that the AI bubble had just burst before its eyes. Well, did it? Or was this just a pullback to set the markets up for an end-of-year rally? To address these pressing questions, we're fortunate to welcome back to the program technical analyst and author Michael Oliver, founder of market research firm Momentum Structural Analysis. Michael, thanks so much for joining us today.

**Michael Oliver** (2:32)
Good to be back, Adam. Thank you.

**Adam Taggart** (2:33)
Hey, well, thank you for coming back, especially on Thanksgiving week. So first off, Michael, early Thanksgiving to you and your family. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. All right, well, let's just roll up our sleeves and dive into that key question I just mentioned. Was last week an important trend break or was it just a pullback to set things up to go even higher into the interview?

**Michael Oliver** (2:54)
It's a mixed situation. We don't just look at, for example, Nasdaq 100 or Nvidia and the key stocks that weigh so heavily in those two indexes, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 Like in the first five stocks in Nasdaq, 150 percent of the entire index in Nvidia upfront. If you go to the S&P, yes, it's not quite so weighted, but it's about 30 percent. What those symbols do, Nvidia being the preeminent one, impacts as indexes more than 50 other stocks. We all know this. Everybody is now focused on the fact that the market's narrow.
And yet, the market doesn't break down despite that violation of a rule, the assumption being you've got to have breadth. What Nvidia did on Friday, before the earnings report came out, we put out a report prior to the close of that day when the earnings come out after the close. We said Nvidia really needs to rally first because it's certain short-term technicals didn't look right for it to have a bad report right out of the gate. And sure enough, they took the lid off of it. We went up as much as you might take three weeks to do. They did it in one hour, okay. But then it failed in the same day, which is a bit surprising. And closed weak enough for us to say, oops, you broke something. Okay, now I'm not going to say it's the end of the world. I'm saying you slipped on a stone. You're wobbly now, okay. And NASDAQ 100 did too. By the end of the week, the close was not at a level that we liked in terms of breaking certain momentum factors. But the S&P didn't. The S&P managed literally in the last few minutes we were watching, we had some key numbers that had been trading below, and got right back above them and closed. And sure enough, this morning we shot back up. Our assumption is this, broad view, the market's been topping since late last year, early this year, depending on the index. A lot of stocks and indexes made highs late last year, November, December, and some of them made their highs in January, February this year. But basically, around that four-month period, let's say, we think the market began a topping process. Now, when we say topping process, that's the way the market has topped most times before. You go back and look at the.com top. It took a year of laborious action, topping out, teasing new highs by just a little bit, and then fumbling around, but not breaking. It wasn't until early 2002 that the 2000 to 2002 bear started, in a way that people started to notice. The S&P dropped 50 percent in two years without a crash, and Nasdaq 100 dropped 82 percent in two years. But it took a whole year of arm wrestling, so it confused people, made people, those who were bearish, and we were, we said in January of 2000, be out of this market, okay? Well, for the next half-dozen months, it looked like we were wrong, because the market wouldn't break down, made teasing new highs. Same thing happened in 2007