After seeing the Road to Recovery chart, Steve Cassaday, President and CEO of Cassaday & Company, sent me an email suggesting an alternative alignment of those bear lows. Steve explains:

The objective is to start from the point where the major advance began rather than the exact low. When one does this the advances are remarkably similar. We believe that this occurs because once investors "buy in" psychologically to the idea that a new bottom is in place and that the worst is over, then the advance progresses with increased vigor. Even though the causes of each decline were different, the common thread in each is the emotional component of human nature.

Indeed the S&P 500 Oil Crisis and Tech Crash bear market bottoms were both tested months after their lows. These higher lows (about two months later for the Oil Crisis and five months for the Tech Crash) were followed by strong recoveries. This chart aligns those higher lows with the March 9th Financial Crisis bottom. This overlay thus gives a more optimistic view of the current market.

But have we really skipped a test of the March low? Time will tell.