According to Bank of America's research team, 87% of prior bull-to-bear transitions involved increases in volatility. That's not particularly surprising. Anyone who has experienced a stock bear probably remembers months and months of extraordinary price swings.

What many fail to recognize about these previous corrective phases, as opposed to 2018's unresolved pullback, is the extent of central bank accommodation that had been enacted. In 2011, Eurozone members established the European Financial Stability Facility, providing emergency lending to troubled nations. That was not enough. The head of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi made good on his words to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro-zone. It followed that the ECB bought gobs of junk-rated sovereign bonds, pushing borrowing costs into the basement so that nations could pay back the interest on their excessive debt loads.

In 2012, as the U.S. stock market was rolling over, the federal reserve (Fed) unleashed its most ambitious electronic money creating scheme yet: Open-ended QE3. The Fed bought hundreds upon hundreds of billions in government obligations with currency credits created out of thin air, pushing borrowing costs ever-downward to stimulate the U.S. economy.