Secular bull market roadmap

We got a blog question from Ladd who asks if we are continuing to run our secular bull market roadmap charts.

The answer is yes, and we plan to cover this theme more extensively in future reports.

What is a secular bull market? How does a secular bull market differ from a cyclical bull market?

A secular bull market is a long-term period, often lasting 10 to 20 years or more, during which the dominant trend for stocks is upward. Within a secular bull, the market advances across multiple business cycles and can include both expansions and recessions, along with shorter-term cyclical bull and bear markets.

By contrast, a cyclical bull market is shorter in duration—typically lasting months to a few years—and is closely tied to the business cycle. Cyclical bulls occur during periods of economic expansion, while cyclical bears often emerge during recessions, but both unfold within the broader framework of a secular trend.

Chart 1: S&P 500 secular bull markets and bear markets

Chart 2 highlights one of our secular bull market roadmap charts: The secular bull market breakouts overlay chart, anchored by the big breakout points for the S&P 500 seen in 1950, 1980, and 2013. The current cycle from 2013 is running ahead of schedule, with the index already exceeding 6000 versus the historical trajectory that pointed to the index surpassing 6000 in mid-2026. Although the S&P 500 looks extended relative to the prior secular bull markets of 1950–1966 and 1980–2000, there is still room for this mid-to-late cycle secular bull trend to continue into the late 2020s or even the early 2030s.

Chart 2: S&P 500 secular bull market breakouts (2013, 1980, and 1950) overlay chart