If you’re a pundit forecasting 2018, then note that since 1980 $SPX up 79% of all years by median of 12% w/ an intrayear drawdown of 11%. That’s your base rate
What happened this year has zero influence on next year’s return $SPX 
Current valuations have close to zero predictive value on next year’s return (left side chart)
Presidential cycle patterns (which are dubious) suggest returns in 2018 will be half the average. Start strong then a big fade
Using Investors Intelligence, high bullishness also lowers next year’s return (bottom row; data from Charlie Bilello)
Macro data has recently been well ahead of expectations. This has zero correlation to $SPX returns in the next 6 months (Business Insider)
To summarize: base rate suggests $SPX will be up in 2018. Sentiment + seasonality suggest lower than average returns (low-mid single digits). Right now, recession risk (thus, bear market risk) is low. More refined forecast than this is pure speculation
Since 1950, $SPX up 72% of all years by median of 12%.
Betting on the unexpected works really well in a downturn because everyone panics at once. That is when you want to be strongly contrarian
Equities are biased upwards over time, and the psychology of tops is very different than bottoms, so betting exclusively on the unexpected in an uptrend works much less well
