Note from dshort: The Nikkei 225 closed today's session down 1.66%. I've updated the chart accordingly and adjusted the callouts to show the most recent interim high and low.

Here is an that gives a close-up view of the cyclical rallies and their duration during Japan's secular bear market, now in its 20th year.

Click for a larger image

I've been posting weekly updates of a mega-bear market charts (here and here) that include Japan's Nikkei 225. In addition, every few months I update an inflation-adjusted overlay of the Nikkei 225 and S&P 500 bubbles.

The table below documents the advances and declines and the elapsed time for each cycle.

For the sake of comparison, the S&P 500 interim high thus far is 79.9% (set April 23) above the low in March 2009. The correction off the low currently stands at -13.6%