Market Regimes

Liquidity / valuation expansion.

Explosive internet adoption, venture capital abundance, IPO speculation, and valuation expansion in technology/media/telecom.

Best single-day start is Netscape's IPO on 1995-08-09; end is the Nasdaq peak on 2000-03-10.

Valuation compression / disinflation.

Equity multiple compression, shallow recession, accounting scandals, and falling yields.

Starts immediately after the Nasdaq peak and ends at the October 2002 market low that closed the post-bubble washout.

Growth / credit expansion.

China's WTO-era integration, broad credit creation, housing leverage, and the commodity supercycle.

Begins at the post-dot-com market low; ends at the October 2007 S&P peak before the GFC.

Credit stress / liquidity squeeze.

Systemic credit stress, forced deleveraging, banking fragility, and a flight to liquidity.

Starts after the October 2007 equity peak and ends at the March 2009 equity trough.

Easing / backstop.

Post-crisis mean reversion supported by ultra-easy policy, interrupted by euro-area breakup fears.

Begins at the March 2009 equity low and ends the day before Draghi's 'whatever it takes' speech.

Disinflation / low rates.

Low inflation, repeated policy backstops, QE, and falling/anchored discount rates.

Starts with Draghi's 2012 backstop, reinforced by Fed QE3 and later ECB QE; ends at the last pre-COVID S&P high on 2020-02-19.

Liquidity shock.

Sudden stop in global activity, extreme risk aversion, and forced deleveraging driving a dash-for-cash.

Starts after the pre-crash S&P 500 high and ends on March 23, 2020, the exact day the Fed shifted to effectively open-ended QE.

Liquidity impulse.

Unprecedented fiscal stimulus and open-ended QE expanding multiples for long-duration assets.

Starts the day after the open-ended-QE/corporate-credit backstop and ends the day before the Pfizer vaccine efficacy surprise.

Growth reopening.

Vaccine-enabled reopening, huge fiscal support, supply-chain friction, and early inflation pressure still framed as transitory.

Starts on Pfizer vaccine news and ends the day before Powell publicly retired 'transitory' on inflation.

Inflation shock.

Central banks abandoned the 'transitory' story and markets repriced inflation persistence, policy rates, and long-duration discount rates with unusual violence.

Starts on Powell's rhetorical pivot away from 'transitory' and ends the day before the cooler October 2022 CPI report triggered a major cross-asset repricing.

Disinflation + narrow equity leadership.

Cooling inflation shifted markets from pure rate-shock panic toward slower-hike and soft-landing hopes, while ChatGPT and Nvidia's 2023 guidance turned AI into the dominant equity leadership theme.

Starts on the cooler October 2022 CPI shock that drove stocks up and yields down, and ends the day before the Fed's first cut of the easing cycle.

Disinflation under stress.

Policy easing as inflation normalizes, resilient growth and AI capex leadership, with a fresh 2026 oil shock threatening the disinflation path.

Starts on the Fed's first cut. It remains open-ended, but January 2026 official Fed language and March 2026 oil-shock reporting show the regime is being tested rather than cleanly resolved.