"When you mention in your audios that we are now in a bear market is this because it fits some technical definition or because you consider it to be a bear market for other reasons?"

David Fuller's view It is an interpretation, as with most market comments until all ambiguities can be explained with hindsight.

In our Audios, Eoin and I had often referred to the possibility of a short, sharp bear market, as our "worst case" scenario during the corrective phase which commenced earlier in the year. That is what we feel we have seen recently, although not all stock market indices have fallen the 20% plus that many people use to define a bear trend.

We had been looking for a corrective phase following the surge in crude oil during March and April; the price was slow to fall back and is still a headwind for the global economy. Bank shares - important lead indicators - have been underperforming in most countries for many months. A number of large, ranging top formations (Type-3 as taught at TCS) have been completed. Too many downward trends are evident.

The best case scenario, in our view, is that the sharp sell-off has created a more dramatic approximation of the July 2010 lows which were followed by a support building phase before the S&P 500 Index pushed higher in September with the help of QE2. A repeat of that performance would see ASEAN markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and The Philippines leading to the upside once again.