middle? LOL early innings like a baseball analogy 

and stupid CNBC who defines a bear market as a 20% decline even if that's only a month long like in early 2020. 

To me, there's not a set definition or number for a bear market: To me bear markets can be described as a combination of price AND Time and emotion, and a change in leadership - it's the combination of all of these things, NOT some arbitrary 20% decline. Some quick hard 20% sell off that results in new highs quickly with the same leadership is simply a correction. True bear markets are not as much about a price decline but about time and wearing you out - go through a 20/30% correction that only lasts 1 month long, as long as you were not over leveraged, you can just wait that out, and it's not long enough to get you to change your mind about things. Bear markets have to last long enough to cause investors to give up, wear out, maybe that's a 1 year, 1.5 years, 2 years etc.  A 30% correction that takes 2 years to occur is much worse to deal with than one that takes 1 month. Also, and probably most importantly is a change in leadership occurs. What was hot during the bull market and was wise to buy every dip does not lead after the bear market is over, you get a change in leadership. Investors get worn out not just because of price declines but also because emotionally they keep chasing putting all their strategy/energy into trying to reposition into the old leaders - which is the wrong approach.