This week I received a promotional email from a company that makes a quid by providing analysis of the resources market. It was headed “Getting ready for the next wave” and pointed at how well resource stocks had done in the first half of 2014.

Nothing wrong with that as apparently the data is very detailed and there’s a great advantage in being able to take a good hard look at facts.

No, what really struck me were the general stats for the half year to June 30.

In that time, 260 resource companies enjoyed a share price rise over the six months – that’s 27% of the number of Australian Securities Exchange-listed resource stocks.

Breaking that figure down, 63 of those companies saw their share price rising by 100% or more.

But then this: only six of those were producers, the others were all explorers.

However, of the latter, 23 had no resource defined.

All this is outlined in the context of whether, as some pundits would have it, we are overdue for a correction.

After all, they argue, going 24 months without one (of at least 10%) can only mean the market is overheated and heading for a bigger and bigger fall every month we go without that correction.

Well, maybe not. Avondale Asset Management of Santa Monica, California, had a look at the periods during which the S&P 500 had gone without a 10% correction and this one was by no means the longest.

And, in terms of the percentage increase during each of these bull market rallies, the present one is just a baby – and has in fact the smallest rise of all 10 rallies dating back to 1950.

Here is the table Avondale compiled:

Rally duration	Months	Rise (%)
Oct 1990-Oct 1997	84	233
Mar 2003-Oct 2007	54	95
Jun 1962-Feb 1966	44	80
Jun 1984-Aug 1987	38	126
Jul 1950-Jan 1953	30	60
Jun 2012-Present	25	53
Sep 1954-Sep 1955	24	101
Dec 1987-Oct 1989	22	61
Oct 1957-Aug 1959	21	56
Aug 1982-Oct 1983	14	69

Having looked at that, what can we conclude?

Nothing much, I suspect.

For one thing, we probably have not reached the peak of the present bull market rally, it is simply impossible to know whether we will go on rising for another one, five or 15 months.

And while the S&P 500 rallied after the 1987 crash through to October 1989, my memory is that this was not replicated in the resources sector, especially at the junior end.

In 1989, in fact, the juniors were still in a state of shock following the crash.

The big industrials came back but it was hard going trying to raise money for exploration and bank balances were dropping quickly.

In fact, it was a situation that persisted for at least a decade.

The 1990s was a difficult decade.

In the US, small-stock weakness pulled back the overall market in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.

To some extent, the All Ords here benefited from the then existence of the second board, where many of the no-hoper stocks resided and were thus quarantined from the main index.

But the juniors acted as a dead weight for much of that period.

Not too many months ago it looked as though the sector was doing its deadweight thing again but 2014 has produced many surprises.

The resources sector is getting quite frothy. There are signs, though, that the market may be bored with some stories – certainly coal and iron ore are in that category.

The big surge in graphite and vanadium plays suggests that investors may believe these niches have the ability to withstand any general market turndown and thus ignore the looming fundamentals.

Many fingers have been burned over the years with attempts to break into markets that have one very dominant player, either in the form of a country (China is the usual one) or a multinational (Glencore, in the case of vanadium).

For all the years of effort, the control of vanadium, rare earths, antimony, graphite and others still remains dominated by one or a few player/s.

In the case of graphite, the real threat is not so much China’s dominance as the potential for oversupply, given the vast number of companies progressing projects.

According to the US Geological Survey, global graphite production last year was 1.19 million tonnes and already there is more than 800Mt of inferred resources, with that figure growing rapidly.

One London broker has a running gag in his client notes when mentioning graphite and the vast expansion of the number of graphite companies: that is, that Tesco will soon be able to give one bag free of graphite with every grocery purchase.

When we do have a correction, it will knock the resources sector as it always does but may well inflict particular pain on any sector that has galloped ahead of the pack.

The fact that 23 companies without a resource can see such stellar share gains does put you a little on edge that we may be overheating.