A wheezing, unloved bull market tries to keep running

At times, even as the market stayed strong, regular investors were pulling money out of stocks instead of investing more as in past bull markets.

[...] worries are high that the market has already topped out, and that a recession may be coming to knock the Standard & Poor's 500 index down again.

Nearly three quarters of retirement savings in 401(k) and similar plans is in stocks, according to a survey of plans at Vanguard, one of the largest retirement account administrators.

[...] the index has so far managed to avoid a drop of 20 percent, the arbitrary line where market watchers say a bull market morphs into a bear market.

At times money went into U.S. stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, but never with the fervor that gripped investors during the dot-com boom or other bull markets.

Just over $205 billion went into foreign stock funds over the same time, and nearly $8 billion entered taxable bond funds.

Even portions of the U.S. stock market outside the energy industry, like small U.S. company stocks, fell into a bear market, though they have recovered somewhat in recent weeks.

U.S. companies — and the stock market — have so far weathered a lot, strategists from Deutsche Bank wrote in a recent research report.