If you’ve already written this bull market off for dead, I have to admit, you’ve given up on the stock market and I can’t help you. For this bull market to have been born in June and dead by August, the economic environment would need to be worse than it was in 1932, in the deepest depths of the Great Recession.

That’s when the shortest bull market in modern memory happened. Back then, investors only got two months after rallying 20% from its peak before the bear recouped control of Wall Street. Those were truly bad times.

But even then, investors who bought the brief rally didn’t have a lot to complain about. That two-month rally sent the S&P 500 up a dizzying 91%. The brief but savage retreat that followed took about 30% off that peak, leaving the market roughly 55% off its low.

Maybe you think the world is in worse shape now than it was 80 years ago and the market just no longer has what it takes to recover. In that scenario, you’ve effectively given up on stocks, the economy and the American people.

Because in every other crisis over the past eight decades, the bulls got years to run. Other than the 1932 shudder, the shortest modern bull market lasted 1.8 years . . . before the grim lead into World War II cut the rally short. Only the 2020-2021 pandemic bubble was anywhere near that truncated.

It took real determination for the bulls to start running this time around. The mood bottomed out in October and it took eight months for the S&P 500 to recover 20% from that low point. During that period, it became clear that even the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes wouldn’t be severe enough to crash the economy immediately.

And in the absence of that crash, guess what? We survived. Corporations didn’t implode like people feared. A recession like the one we saw in 2008 just didn’t happen this time around.

I’m thinking the recession is already well underway for corporations. Earnings are down from last year. But in the current quarter, we’re looking for a slight uptick. Even if that doesn’t happen, the comparisons practically guarantee better times ahead for the end of the year.

In that scenario, we’ve already lived through the worst of it. Things get better from here. In a few months, members of the S&P 500 will be getting bigger again in the aggregate. The economy will be growing.

That’s good for investors. It’s hard for stocks to go down for long when the economy is feeding more profit across big companies year after year, which is why bull markets are hard to kill once they get going.

Admittedly, it isn’t a smooth ride. The first few months of any baby bull are the most intense . . . but then there’s generally a lull and a pause for the market to test its convictions. Things slow down. People get nervous and start second guessing themselves.

But in history, the bull has never backed down this fast. History can bends, but it rarely breaks. If the bear takes over again, I’ll be shocked.

Remember, bond yields move in the opposite direction from bond prices. If bonds are falling, that means money is pouring out of that particular side of the global financial markets.

Within the dollar sphere, money flowing out of bonds means money needs to flow into either cash or stocks. Cash is bad news as long as inflation remains high. You might be able to get 4% in money markets, but you’re probably going to lose it all from inflation.

Only stocks can make enough right now to keep ahead of inflation. They might go down instead but the right stocks have a fighting chance. When that’s the best bet you get, you take it.

And ultimately, I think that’s why the bull remains on top. Buckle in. It might be a wild ride but it will be fun.