Prior bear market bottoms have seen mutual fund cash levels reach double digit levels. Sellers are washed out. We have just the opposite condition at the moment. Mutual funds are currently sitting on one of the lowest cash reserve levels in history. This is not a bear market asset allocation.
Bear markets end when sentiment is dark.
There were few believers at the time. A contrarians dream. Today also happens to be a contrarians dream for all of the opposite reasons. Their bullishness will need to be discredited before we can call this a true long term stock price bottom. Bear markets end when assets are cheaper to buy on Wall Street than they are to build or purchase in the real economy.