With the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index having dropped 7 percent from its April high, some forecasters say the bull market is over.

But investment guru Mark Hulbert doesn’t agree. “That’s because only a minority of the indicators that have accompanied prior major stock market tops are present today,” he writes on MarketWatch.

As for the indicators:

“Valuation is no worse than neutral,” Hulbert says. The current price-earnings ratio for the S&P 500, based on trailing 12-month earnings, stands at 14.9, a bit below the 140-year average of 15.5.

Monetary conditions also are no worse than neutral, Hulbert maintains. Interest rates are near record lows, and the Federal Reserve doesn’t plan to raise rates before late 2014.

When it comes to sentiment, “almost all the indicators in this category are outright bullish,” Hulbert writes.

As for technicals, “this category is the most negative,” Hulbert says.

So what do you get when you put all this together? “It would certainly appear as though the better bet is that new bull market highs are still ahead,” he writes.

Others also see gains, at least for the short term.

“The U.S. equity market remains strong relative to the rest of the world,” writes Bank of America technical analyst Mary Ann Bartels in a note obtained by WSJ.com. “The bull story is that foreign investors want to own U.S. equities.”