Is the bull market over?

I ran into an interesting article in Fortune titled "Don't expect another bull market: Stock returns may never be the same -- at least for this generation of investors." The article made a bold prediction:

Barring a miracle -- or the creation of a New Math of the market variety -- there's no way we'll ever see a bull market along the lines of what so many of us grew up with.

This is very interesting from a sentiment viewpoint. A few years ago, at the height of the dot com boom, some claimed that we were creating a new economy in which the stock market could not go down. Then it crashed.

I say, don't buy into these extremes. In the long run, the market will have ups and downs, but will continue a slow long-term uptrend. We may have rough periods of adjustment -- like we are currently seeing in housing -- but that doesn't mean that the fundamentals have changed.

Articles like this can be a good contrarian sign. As writers predict the end of stock market gains, it may be a sign that we have reached the bottom.

Kevin Kersten is an Stock and Options Analyst with InvestorsObserver.com. Disclosure note: Mr. Kersten owns and/or controls a diversified portfolio of long and short positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.