In my annual “predictions” column in early January, I wrote:

“I’m expecting the biggest correction since the 16% and 19.4% retrenchments in 2010 and 2011 … that would test investors’ faith in this almost five-year-old bull market.”

Be careful what you wish for.

The S&P 500 Index has lost as much as 9.8% from its intraday peak, the Nasdaq Composite index more than 10%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 more than 14%.

But far from feeling vindicated, I’m just as frightened as you are.

Corrections aren’t fake. They look like bear markets and act like bear markets. They scare you like bear markets do, but corrections end faster and stocks bounce back quicker.

Both are miserable experiences. But here’s how they’re different.

Most of the time, bear markets are harbingers of economic recession, while corrections are hiccups — or big burps — that usually follow complacency and overvaluation.

I think we’re in the latter. In fact, it looks like a classic correction, a 10%-20% decline in share prices from their peak. Ed Yardeni said it best: “Corrections are panic attacks that aren’t validated by the fundamentals.”

What better describes this market? Panic about Europe, panic about the Federal Reserve, panic about everything.

But the biggest panic of all is the one over the Ebola virus, a horrible human catastrophe in West Africa but which so far has infected two — that’s right, two — nurses in the United States. And as Jon Stewart virtually shouted the other night, they were handling bodily fluids of a dying man who was infected in Liberia.

So this is what’s causing stocks to tumble and the VIX volatility index to shoot up into the mid-20s, the highest it’s been since Spain and Italy looked like they were going to follow Greece into default in 2012?

I won’t go into detail about fundamentals — last week I laid out why I thought the U.S. was in relatively good shape.

But that’s the main point. As the table shows, most of the time big bear markets go hand in hand with recessions.

Bear markets and recessions 1961-present

Bear market dates % drop of S&P 500 from peak Duration of bear market Dates of recession Duration of recession October 2007-March 2009 56.40% 17 months December 2007-June 2009 18 months March 2000-October 2002 49.10% 30 months March-November 2001 8 months July--October 1990* 19.90% 3 months July 1990-March 1991 8 months August-December 1987 33.50% 3 months None for nearly 3 years N.A. November 1980-August 1982 27.80% 21 months July 1981-November 1982 16 months January 1973-October 1974 48.00% 21 months November 1973-March 1975 16 months November 1968-May 1970 36.10% 18 months December 1969-November 1970 11 months February 1966-October 1966 22.20% 8 months None for more than 3 years N.A. December 1961-June 1962 28.00% 6 months None for more than 7 years N.A. *Generally considered a correction Sources: Yardeni Research, Stock Trader’s Almanac, National Bureau of Economic Research

The Great Recession, the dot.com bust, Paul Volcker’s crackdown on inflation, the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, and the Vietnam War and the end of the Go-Go 1960s all had steep bear markets that lasted at least 17 months, followed or accompanied by serious recessions.

The counter-examples? Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait helped spur a borderline bear market followed by a brief recession. All three other examples — the 1987 crash and the two bear markets of the early- to mid-1960s — lasted a few months and were caused in part by Fed tightening.

That’s certainly not in the cards; if anything, overseas weakness and tumbling commodities prices are more likely to delay the Fed’s first rate increase next year. In fact, James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Fed, on Thursday said the Fed should consider extending its bond-buying program beyond this month.

Meanwhile, plummeting oil prices may give the world economy a $1 trillion shot in the arm.

And although forecasts are pretty gloomy for Europe, hardly anyone’s predicting a U.S. recession yet.

And that’s the bottom line for me: no recession, no bear market. This correction is nasty and scary and it may not be over yet, but at this point sitting tight and not panicking are the way to go.

Howard R. Gold is a MarketWatch columnist and founder and editor of GoldenEgg Investing, which offers simple, low-cost, low-risk retirement investing plans. Follow him on Twitter @howardrgold.