Each callback time, at the moment, feels like this time is really different.

One of the biggest investment lessons I’ve learned these years is that every time there’s a major selloff, when you’re in the middle of it, it makes you feel like this time is really different.

October 2023. April 2024. August 2024. April 2025. March 2026. And now, this one as well.

Looking back, these were all just a normal adjustment within the market. But when you’re in the middle of it, every single time it feels completely different. The media keeps amplifying negative news, market sentiment deteriorates rapidly, and everywhere you hear people saying, “This bubble is really about to burst,” “This is really when we turn bearish.”

A bull-market pullback is one thing; a bear market is another.

Many pullbacks, in essence, are only short-term reactions driven by market sentiment, overly high positioning, or macro uncertainty. Like this round: semiconductors have gone from a surge in gains to emotion-driven liquidation. That’s itself a typical process of valuation digestion—the industrial logic hasn’t been disproven.

A true bear market is continuous deterioration in fundamentals, such as corporate earnings growth slowing persistently or turning negative; big players starting to proactively cut capital expenditures; market leaders gradually losing their leadership; strong sectors starting to break down; major indices forming persistent lower highs and lower lows.

So far, I haven’t seen these signals. Cloud providers are still expanding AI capital expenditures. The pace at which companies deploy AI is still accelerating. Data centers are still being built. Demand across areas like storage, networking, optical interconnects, and advanced packaging hasn’t suddenly disappeared because of the selloff over the past couple of days.

Will there be a real, prolonged bear market in the future? Of course it will.

I think it’s most likely after 2028.

Until I see clear deterioration in corporate earnings, capital expenditures truly starting to contract, and a sustained outflow of institutional capital as the main storyline, I will treat the pullback in front of me as normal volatility within a bull market.

My own judgment for the period ahead is: in July and August, the overall market will most likely first surge to a higher point, with the S&P around 7,800. From mid-August to the end of September, uncertainty and volatility will clearly intensify. Ahead of the midterm election, the tug-of-war, repeated geopolitical developments, and uncertainty around the Federal Reserve’s policy will all make this period tough. I expect the deepest pullback to reach the 7,000 to 7,200 range, but the decline won’t exceed 10%. Because back in March this year there was already about a 10% pullback, it will be hard for another second one of the same level—or deeper—to happen again within the year.

The S&P’s forward P/E is currently around 20x. If it truly pulls back to around 7,000 points, the P/E would compress to 17x to 18x. The peak P/E in 2000 was 25x. We’re still in a bull market driven by earnings, and everyone remains very rational. Then in November and December—that is, in the fourth quarter—we’ll restart the push higher again. The year-end target is 8,000 to 8,200. By end of this year, 8,000–8,200; next year, 9,000. When the overall market reaches a parabolic move, all sectors will bloom together.

Holding on to your positions doesn’t mean ignoring risk. If the fundamentals really have changed, sell if you should. If the logic has been disproven, you should reassess—this is what rational investing should look like. But if it’s only sentiment that’s changing and valuations that are correcting, and the company’s long-term logic hasn’t truly changed, I won’t easily overturn my original judgment just because of a few days—or even a few weeks—of downside.

Holding on means learning how to distinguish what is merely short-term volatility from what is a genuine trend reversal. I believe this is a lesson every investor should learn. Separate fear from facts, and you’ll have a better chance to get ahead of most people.