A couple of great questions came in on the Seeking Alpha version of this morning's post about run-of-the-mill bear markets and I thought it would be useful to post the questions here and how I answered them.Why do you think we won't have a decline similar to what we had in '00-'03, which was a lot more than 30%?Markets cut in half every so often; the great depression, the mid 1970's; the start of this decade and I also know there was a depression in the 1870's but do not know what the market did then, there was also a bank panic in 1907 that lead to a 37% decline that year. If you notice you see the gaps in time ranging from 22 years on up.I believe the reason for this is that the market "can't" cut in half so soon after doing ...

Hansen Natural (HANS), which makes Monster energy drink, reported lower-than-expected quarterly results as cost increases drove down profitability, sending its shares down 13 percent after hours. The company posted a first-quarter net income of $28.8 million, or 29 cents a share, compared with $20.2 million, or 21 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts expected the company to earn 35 cents a share. Hansen lost sales as customers made early purchases in the fourth quarter to beat price increases. It also demonstrates the short attention span suffered by most investors, as this was all discussed on the conference call three months ago. At the time, I said “Hansen Natural is giving back the last month’s gains today after reporting higher than expected sales and lower than expected margins. Both were explained by customers stocking up ahead of a price increase.” Early this year I felt that growth was available on ...