Do bear markets end in V shaped recovery?

Sometimes I feel analysts sometimes overdo things. When the going is good Sensex is predicted to cross 25,000 and when the markets slump, suddenly the same analysts see the sensex going to 8000, 7000, 4500...take your pick! I think its not difficult but even impossible to predict the long term movements of the markets. There are just so many factors that can never be put into the equation (e.g. no one could predict a thing such as sub prime?), so how can the markets ever be predicted over long term. 

However there are certain things that remain constant. For e.g. empirical evidence. As pointed out by Shankar Sharma, there has been no market in the world that has given continuous 6 years of positive gains! And to top it after 5 years of unprecedented gains, those markets tend to give negative returns for some time. ( I hope this does not hold true for us!)...e.g. USA from 1924 to 1929, India from 1987-1992 both followed by periods of negative returns...

So where do we go from here. To get into an intermediary uptrend we would have to trade constantly above 3800 on the Nifty, that basically means a 10% upmove from here, which correspondingly on the Sensex would mean somewhere around 12500 odd...till such time this move can best be described as a technical pullback...Also another interesting fact is that yesterday the volumes on the markets were low and there was huge short covering, this was evident from the futures rates that went into a 50 point premium. Certainly low volumes would have to get built into stronger volumes if we have to sustain the thoughts of a recovery. Till such time i think its time to enjoy the upmove, as long as it lasts...