Depends on Your Definition of “Long Run”

The graph below, which I created in Excel from Bob Shiller’s Real S&P 500 data, does a good job illustrating secular market cycles:

I like to use the S&P 500 Index adjusted for inflation (i.e. in today’s dollars) to more easily demonstrate market cycles. The red lines indicate the start of secular bear markets and the green lines indicate the start of secular bull markets. Both of those were subjective determinations on my part.

The point of this graph is simply to illustrate that markets don't move up forever; in fact there are long periods of time (20+ years at times) when equity prices can trend flat or downward. That being said, markets can deviate from their secular trend (e.g. a cyclical bull market in a secular bear market) as all secular bull and bear markets have periods of reversal from the longer-term trend.

Since 2000 we appear to be in a secular downward trend.  While it is possible that we are starting (from March 2009) a new secular bull market, it appears secular trends tend to last roughly 16 years.  Thus, based on the history of market cycles alone we appear to be in a cyclical bull market within a secular bear market.