Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, if we look over the last 100 years, this is the 11th worst decline. The worst decline, of course, (many people would not be surprised to know) was in the early years of the Great Depression in the 1930s. But if we go back in recent decades, say the last three decades, the current decline has only been exceeded by the decline during the early 1970s. Now another way to look at these bear markets is, how long are they? And in terms of length of the bear market, our current bear market is the sixth longest at near 400 days in the last 100 years. The record is held for a 900-day bear market in 1901. We hope we don't go that long."