Friday's fall: Are we still in a bull market? All you need to know

The foundation of a robust bull market is hopelessness, says the author

As the calls of ‘Weychi ne nikarvu?’ (Sell and exit?) mounted last week, I wrote these lines for personal clarity. 

• If the market can be expressed through the prism of emotion, then permit me to say that we encountered a near-terminal emotion last Friday — panic. 
• The tension (when will the decline happen?) is over. It has been happening in mid-caps through January, translating into a huge sell-off last week. 
• A complete cycle will bring us to the point where we will want to stop seeing the quotes/papers just like we wanted to plug into the Moneycontrol app to check portfolio values every