The nature of this bear market was obscured by the enormous increase in credit and money supply just prior to y2k. These dollars seemed to go into the then hot Internet stocks until 2000. Then we had a crash of monumental proportions in the alleged "bubble." This resulted in a sharp, 6 trillion dollar loss in the stock market.
Greenspan et al then pumped up the money supply and pushed short term interest rates into almost all time low levels. With the Bush Tax Cut and huge increases in the equity of homeowners due to the low interest and mortgage rates, the bear market has been further obscured.
But the kicker in all of this is that the depreciation of the dollar (inflation) has added to this hidden bear market until recently when it began to drop in earnest.
Presently, there are many short term challenges for investors, but IMHO anticipate another five or more years of general stock market decline when one corrects for inflation. A good way to measure this decline is the gold/DJ ratio; however, right now this post is too long.