8 Things to Know about the Bull Market on Its 8th Birthday 
 
 The stock market has accomplished something that only one other bull market in history has achieved — it survived to see its eighth birthday. 
 
 It was eight years ago today that the Dow Jones industrial average sank to its recent nadir of 6,547, as hundreds of thousands of workers were losing jobs and the global financial system teetered on the edge of collapse. 
 
 Since then, though, the Dow has skyrocketed more than 14,000 points to 20,855. The broader S&P 500 index of U.S. stocks has come roaring back too, returning an annual 20% to investors who had the nerve to stay in the scary market. 
 
 But this was by no means a straight shot back up. In fact, the second-longest bull market in the post-World War II era has been unpredictable, puzzling, and rather peculiar. 
 
 Here's how: 
 
 1. This Bull Has Been Unloved 
 
 "The current bull market has been the least loved, the most questioned and the most doubted bull that we certainly can recall in near 34 years of experience in the markets," noted Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus in a recent report. 
 
 That's an understatement. 
 
 Even as this bull market more than tripled the value of stocks over the past eight years, the percent of households that actually own equities has sunk from 62% in 2008 to 52% last year, according to a survey by Gallup . 
 
 That's the lowest level of stock ownership in the 19 years that Gallup has been tracking this data. 
 
 2. This Bull Has Been Persistent 
 
 World events since 2009 have been anything but supportive for a major stock market rally. Major industries such as banks and automakers neared collapse. The Federal government shutdown for 16 days. And political posturing in Congress in the Obama years brought the nation close to defaulting on the national debt. 
 
 Overseas, major European nations were crippled by a debt crisis, terrorists attacks spread around the globe, and China's economy endured a dramatic slump. 
 
 Yet stocks kept chugging along. 
 
 3. This Bull Was Nearly Gored Last Year 
 
 Since President Trump's election in November, the stock market has been on a a roll, as most major economic metrics have been pointing higher. So it's easy to forget that as recently as a year ago, there was real doubt that equities would make it to this anniversary. 
 
 One year ago stocks were battered by a series of bad headlines, such as low growth in China and weak global demand for oil. A few months later U.K. voters decided to leave the European Union, and eventually Donald Trump was elected president — a plot twist that some analysts predicted would cause stocks to crash. 
 
 And yet stocks rebounded from their disastrous 2016 winter to deliver 22% over the past 12 months, according to CFRA, the third biggest year-over-year gain since March 2009. 
 
 4. This Bull Has Been Surprisingly Calm 
 
 Despite all of last year's uncertainty, stocks have been remarkably subdued. In fact, compared to the bull market of October 1990 to March 2000, investors could afford to take a long, deep breath for the past 12 months. 
 
 "During year eight, the S&P 500 recorded 85 [days of more than 1% gains or losses] in 1998, but only 23 in the year just past," according to CFRA's Sam Stovall. 
 
 5. This Bull Is Getting Expensive 
 
 " Most importantly for investors, both stocks and bonds are now significantly more expensive than eight years ago," says David Kelly, chief global strategist for J.P. Morgan Funds. 
 
 The current price/earnings ratio for the S&P 500 now rests at 18 based on projected profits over the coming 12 months. That's about 12% above the market's 25-year average, per Kelly. That could be a result of investors hoping that a GOP-dominated federal government will unleash billions in tax cuts and spending to jumpstart persistently lackluster post-recession economic growth. 
 
 By another P/E calculation, the market is even frothier. Based on 10 years of averaged corporate profits, the stock market's P/E now stands at 29.8. The only other times the market has been this expensive by this measure was during the dot.com bubble and the Great Depression. 
 
 6. This Bull Is Egalitarian 
 
 Different sectors of the market have experienced their own highs and lows. Financial stocks, for instance, gained 149% from March 2009 - 2010, according to CFRA, but fell 9.5% two years later, before leading the pack last year. 
 
 Two years ago sleepy, defensive-minded utility stocks earned investors the best return (14.8%), while energy companies lost big league (-16.2%). 
 
 These rough edges, though, have smoothed out over the long haul. From 2009 to 2017, there's only a 1 percentage point difference in annual returns between the top and second best sectors — consumer discretionary 25.7% vs. real estate's 24.6%. Five sectors returned between 22% to 26% per year, while the weakest performer (energy) returned a respectable 9.4%. 
 
 7. This Bull Has Gotten a Big Assist from the Fed 
 
 Normally, there's a pattern to bull markets. First, stocks rise, foreshadowing a rebound in economic growth. Then once the economy actually gets into gear, the Federal Reserve starts to tap on the brakes by raising interest rates to make sure the economy — and inflation — don't overheat. 
 
 The cumulative effect of Fed rate hikes are often what helps bring about the end to bull markets. 
 
 This time around, though, the Fed has kept interest rates at historically low levels throughout the eight years of this bull. The Fed has lifted rates only two times throughout this entire rally — each time by a mere quarter of a percentage point. 
 
 But that may change as the Fed is expected to lift rates next week. 
 
 8. This Bull Will Turn 9 
 
 This bull market has dovetailed with one of the longest business cycles in American history. But all things end, which have some worried that a recession, and stock market declines, could eventually reappear. 
 
 But old age would be the wrong cause of death, should it occur. 
 
 "Bull markets don’t die of old age, they die of fright," says Stovall. 
 
 Which means there has to be something to cause investors to sell en masse and move their money into safer assets. And usually that involves concerns over negative economic growth, i.e. recessions. 
 
 So will the economy contract in 2017? 
 
 It doesn't appear likely. Demand for automobiles and homes remain strong, and the Fed has signaled multiple times that it believes the economy is strong enough to endure higher interest rates. 
 
 But that doesn't mean you should expect prices to rise forever, or at least as much as they have in the recent past. 
 
 "With earnings growing more slowly, dividend yields and bond coupons low, and the potential for P/E ratios and real yields to mean revert, a traditional 60/40 U.S. stock/bond portfolio could well generate returns over the next five years that are less than half the roughly 8% annualized gain that such a portfolio provided over the past 25 years," says Kelly. ||||| NEW YORK (Reuters) - The run of gains on Wall Street turns 8 years old on Thursday and, despite its advanced age, is expected to rage on, with perhaps a few hiccups, based on a combination of stronger company earnings, lower taxes and a corporate-friendly administration in Washington. 
 
 A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid 
 
 Strategists, however, warn that a correction of as much as 10 percent should be expected as the market is richly valued. The bull case for equities relies on analysts seeing little chance of recession in the short term. 
 
 “Just because the (bull) market has hit a birthday, or is among the longest ever, doesn’t mean that it will ‘die’ of old age,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. 
 
 “Markets don’t really pay attention to the calendar or the candles on the cake.” 
 
 The S&P 500 index has rallied 250 percent since hitting a closing low of 676.53 on March 9, 2009. The gains since, uninterrupted by a decline of 20 percent or more, rank this bull market as the second longest ever. 
 
 The current run is nearly three years older than the average bull and more than a year shorter than the longest one: the rally from Oct. 11, 1990 to March 24, 2000. 
 
 The S&P continued to rise through a year-long decline in corporate earnings through most of 2016, supported in part by historically low interest rates which made stocks comparatively cheaper and more rewarding than U.S. Treasuries. 
 
 The index has risen nearly 6 percent in 2017, closing on Wednesday at 2,362.98. Analysts remain undeterred in their belief that more gains are coming as the economy and corporate earnings growth improve. 
 
 "With earnings growth expected to continue the rest of the year, it might be a rocky road but it could still be that the bull market makes it to nine," said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina. 
 
 Infographic ID: '2n9BKfK' 
 
 A Reuters poll in December showed analysts expected the S&P 500 to finish 2017 at 2,350, buoyed by the belief that President Donald Trump’s plans to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending, lower taxes and financial deregulation would come to pass. 
 
 Strategists, including some with a lower target than that, see the bull market continuing, even if a correction is in the cards. 
 
 Julian Emanuel, executive director of U.S. equity and derivatives strategy at UBS Securities, said he expects a pullback of 5 to 10 percent to “refresh” the bull market and that such a correction would be a buying opportunity. 
 
 “The bull market is going to finish, in our view, when conditions begin to accumulate that tend to lead to a recession. We just don’t see that as a 2017 or 2018 event,” Emanuel said. 
 
 He warned, however, that “valuations have outrun earnings potential and the state of fundamentals generally.” 
 
 With the S&P 500 currently trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 18, well above its average of 15, corporate profits will need to improve in order to bring down valuations. 
 
 Earnings are seen growing 10.7 percent this year compared to last, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data. Even though that is a lower expectation than the 12.5 percent estimate at the start of January, it still allows for a healthy gain in 2017. 
 
 U.S. economic data, including a private sector jobs report on Wednesday that showed growth recorded its biggest increase in more than a year in February, continues to improve and is far from indicating a downturn, further supporting stock prices. 
 
 “We do not yet see any of the warning signs that point to a larger decline,” said Kingsview’s Nolte, who sees a pullback of up to 5 percent. “A recession does not seem to be in the cards just yet.” ||||| CLOSE It took years for the Dow to climb to 19K, but in just months it has soared to 22K and isn't slowing down. USA TODAY 
 
 This file photo taken on December 8, 2016 shows the Wall Street Bull sculpture in the Financial District in New York. (AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: BRYAN R. SMITH, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 The Dow hit a fresh milestone Wednesday, cracking the 22,000 barrier for the first time in its 121-year history. 
 
 So-called "Dow 22K" is the latest sign that the stock market's long climb that began in March 2009 and that has gained momentum this year amid a global economic recovery continues to charge ahead. 
 
 The Dow topped 22,000 minutes into the trading session, climbed as high as 22,036.10 before closing up 52 points, or 0.24%, at 22,016.24. The Dow's first-ever close above 22,000 was fueled by a 4.7% advance and record high finish for iPhone maker Apple, which reported strong earnings late Tuesday. 
 
 The latest milestone for the blue-chip stock gauge, which includes iconic U.S. companies such as Boeing, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Johnson & Johnson, ignited a fresh debate on Wall Street as to whether the stock price run-up has more room to go or if a market peak is nearing. 
 
 The Dow Jones industrial average has gained 11.4% this year. It is up 236% since its bear market low of 6547.05, which means a $10,000 investment would be worth $33,600 now. 
 
 Joe Quinlan, chief market strategist at New York-based U.S. Trust, downplayed the significance of the Dow's latest 1,000-point climb. The reason? It represents just a 4.3% gain since it topped 21,000 on March 1. 
 
 What would worry Quinlan, however, would be if investors on Wall Street and Main Street get overly excited and start to pile into the market and quickly push the Dow up another 3,000 points. 
 
 "Chatter about Dow 25,000 would worry me," he says, calling it "a sign of a market top" and "too much exuberance." 
 
 Related: 
 
 It took the Dow 154 calendar days to climb from 21,000 to 22,000, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. In contrast, it took the Dow 2,119 days -- or nearly six years -- to jump from 14,000 to 15,000 due to the Dow's more than 50% plunge during the 2007 to 2009 bear market. 
 
 The Dow's advance is being powered by better business conditions, recovering economies and improving corporate profits in the U.S. and overseas. 
 
 Stock market optimists say the Dow's current rally is based on improving sales and revenues for U.S. companies and not irrational exuberance like the dot-com stock hysteria back in 2000. 
 
 "Don't let the milestones cause you to miss the simple underlying story: corporate earnings are at all-time highs. So stocks are at all-time highs," says Donald Luskin, chief investment officer at TrendMacro in Chicago. That's how it is supposed to work, he adds. 
 
 CLOSE Following an announcement about legislation to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, President Donald Trump touted the record high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, saying "we picked up four trillion dollars in net worth." (Aug. 2) AP 
 
 A weakening dollar against a basket of foreign currencies is also helping boost profits at big U.S. companies like McDonald's and Boeing that do a lot of business abroad. That's because it makes their products more affordable when purchased with stronger currencies. The Federal Reserve's patient approach to raising interest rates -- which are still near historic lows -- is also providing support for stocks. 
 
 Stocks "can work their way higher, maybe much higher" if interest rates stay very low and central banks around the world continue to provide stimulus to markets, adds David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors, an investment firm based in Sarasota, Fla. 
 
 Milestones are fun to celebrate, but they don't necessarily tell you where the market is headed next, says Lindsey Bell, an investment strategist at CFRA, a market research firm in New York. 
 
 "I don't think it foretells the next leg of the market," says Bell. 
 
 Risks still remain. The Dow, in addition to getting pricey relative to the earnings streams of its 30 components, also faces potential risk from the inability of Washington lawmakers to work together and get things done, Bell says. The delay in getting many of President Trump's economic agenda items passed through Congress could also weigh on stocks, as a lack of tax cuts and infrastructure spending could curtail growth, Bell adds. Potential budgetary gridlock in coming months could also spook investors. 
 
 Critics of the Dow's recent assault of 22,000 note that it is a "price-weighted" index -- which means its up and down moves are driven largely by its most expensive stocks -- which distorts the true health of the index and the broader market. 
 
 For example, Boeing, which is now the Dow's highest-priced name at $237.95 per share, soared nearly 25% in July and had surged more than 14% in the four trading days after its strong earnings report on July 26 -- accounting for a big chunk of the Dow's gains in its final run to 22,000. The shares slipped less than 1% Wednesday. 
 
 "The Dow is a flawed index where price matters and nothing else," says Mark Arbeter, president of Arbeter Investments, a Holland, Pa., firm that analyzes the health of the market by stock chart patterns, trading volume and trendlines. In the past six trading days, the Dow has risen 403 points. Boeing accounted for 43% of that gain. 
 
 "When should an index be dominated by one stock? Never," says Arbeter. 
 
 Investors should also never get overly confident, no matter how strong the stock market is acting, warns U.S. Trust's Quinlan. 
 
 "Investors tend to forget about risk levels as markets hit new highs every session," says Quinlan. 
 
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– Thursday is a Wall Street milestone: The bull market that began on March 9, 2009, turns 8 years old, making it the second-longest such run in history. (It would need to go another year and a half or so to match the record from 1990 to 2000.) Some coverage: On this day in 2009, the S&P 500 plunged to 676. Since then, it's rallied about 250%. The Wall Street Journal has a funky graphic illustrating the near-historic run here. The Dow closed that same day at 6,547, and if you'd invested $20,000 then, it would be worth $64,000 today, notes the New Yorker. But the post has a warning: "With many investors still upbeat, stock prices could rise further for a time. Eventually, however, overvalued markets do correct and revert to levels justified by economic fundamentals." Reuters, however, suggests a bear is nowhere in sight. "The bull market is going to finish, in our view, when conditions begin to accumulate that tend to lead to a recession," says one analyst. "We just don't see that as a 2017 or 2018 event." What's unusual about the long run is what Bloomberg calls the "freakish calm" surrounding it. There's barely a whiff of volatility or investor anxiety, so much so that there's now a debate underway about whether that's healthy. One consequence of the bull run is that stocks and bonds are now quite expensive by historical standards, according to Money. It runs down that and other factoids here. The top performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Index since 2009? Home Depot, which is up more than 600%. MarketWatch looks at other winners. The star stock in the S&P has been biotech firm Incyte, notes USA Today. There's some debate on when this bull market actually began, and Michael Santoli at CNBC runs through it. Unemployment at the start of the run was 8.3%, and it's now 4.8%, per a list of key stats at Yahoo Finance.