Typically, when believers talk about previous secular bear markets, they measure using the Dow (a faulty, price-weighted index which makes returns fairly arbitrary and not reflective of economic reality), or they measure the Dow without dividends reinvested (which is really stretching reality).

FORBES: The Most Hated Bull Market Ever

Other equal-weight ETFs also lose the price battle to cap-weighted index funds.

WSJ: Equal-Weight Indexing: A Good Idea?

As I wrote in a post earlier this year, the problem with putting Apple in the Dow is that the index is price-weighted: stocks with larger absolute prices have a bigger impact than smaller ones.

FORBES: UnitedHealth (And Not Apple) Replaces Kraft In The DJIA

Aside from the Dow being price-weighted and therefore near useless as a market barometer the DJIA total return index has also long been above its prior high.

FORBES: S&P's (Meaningless) Milestone

The underlying Solactive Global Oil Equities Index tracks the performance of 25 equal-weighted companies that have shown a high correlation to the spot price of oil.

FORBES: Two New Oil And Gold ETFs To Watch