The Australian sharemarket narrowly avoided falling into a bear market, staging a mid-morning recovery off its lows, but still posted its 10th loss out 11 trading days this year as energy stocks suffer the bottomless oil rout. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index fell almost 2 per cent in early trade on Monday, placing it perilously close to its 4786.2 threshold to enter a bear market, defined as a 20 per cent fall from its most recent high.