The shortest bear market ever?

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:

The shortest bear market ever?

"Is the bear market over?" asked Ben ­Levisohn at Barron's. Stocks have largely rebounded since last month's lows, and even the collapse in oil prices last week did not have the impact on the market many expected. However, we're not out of the woods yet. A push-pull has developed between bulls, betting on the Federal Reserve to continue coming to the market's rescue, and bears, betting on earnings continuing to fall off a cliff. The stock market usually falls as much as earnings, "which means the MSCI World Index should have fallen as much as 50 percent when all is said and done," but it only dropped 34 percent. Citigroup strategist Robert Buckland says it's time to "buy the dip," but I'm "not making a call to buy stocks now ... just to be ready to."

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No bailout for micro-businesses

Sole proprietors and contractors have been getting "shut out" of the small-business loan program, said Michael Sasso at Bloomberg​. A Treasury Department spokesman said "the self-employed and contractors got tens of billions of dollars in loans" through the Paycheck Protection Program, but small-business advocates say they haven't seen that. "The smallest of businesses lack clout with banks" that have been crucial to obtaining financing. The self-employed were also unable to start applying until a week after other businesses, and got no guidance about their maximum loan amount or what documentation they needed until two days before the money ran out. This has been frustrating for solo entrepreneurs like Dara Padwo-Audick, who "never heard a word on her loan application" for her video production firm and who also can't collect unemployment insurance.

A coming drop in home prices

A Gallup poll found that only 50 percent of Americans think it's a good time to buy a house, said Jacob Passy at MarketWatch, "the lowest share of Americans to have a positive view on the country's housing market" since Gallup began tracking in 2003. With most of the nation under lockdown, real­ ­estate agents have struggled to market homes. Lenders have also tightened some restrictions on mortgages because of the economic uncertainty. As a result, "home sales have come close to a standstill in many parts of the country" despite low mortgage rates, as sellers pull their listings. Gallup found that only 40 percent of Americans think home prices where they live will increase over the next year.

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