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After moving higher on Thursday, Wednesday and Tuesday, neither the DJIA nor the NASDAQ managed a fourth straight gain. The S&P500 joined the decline, losing .30% today. The NASDAQ fell the same amount whereas the DJIA decline was limited to -.12%.

For the week, NASDAQ gained 1.13%, followed by plus .18% for the DJIA; while a mere .07% was registered by the S&P500.

The market is getting closer to the latest high reached on July 19. NASDAQ needs to gain just .69% to reach that target, with the DJIA requiring .76%, whereas the S&P500 is 1.72% of its top.

Both the DJIA and NADSAQ closed higher for the third session in a row, while the S&P 500 continued up for the second day.

The S&P500 as well as the NASDAQ gained .39%, whereas the DJIA increased .25%.

There are only 140 occasions since January 2000, when NASDAQ turned in three straight upticks . That is just 7.2% of all trading days.

The performance of the DJIA is not as strong, turning in 114 triple gains, or 5.9% of the 1945 trading days since 2000.

Looking at tomorrow and considering the chances of a fourth successive gain for these indices, the pattern since 2000 has only 62 four straight uptick dates, or 3.2%. The DJIA past is slightly stronger with four upticks in a row occurring 3.6% of the time, or 70 times in this century.

The DJIIA and the NASDAQ both posted gains for the second day in a row, while the S&P500 also turned up after yesterday’s drop.

The NASDAQ gained 1.04% since last Friday, more than twice the DJIA’s .42% increase, whereas the S&P500 just missed -by .33 points- equaling last week’s close.

The market does not score two up days in a row often. NASDAQ has posted 263 of these days since 2000, or 13.6%. The record is not much different for the DJIA, with 258 successive plus closes, or 13.3% of the time.

While today’s NASDAQ gain of .58% beat the DJIA’s .14% increase, the S&P500 fell. Although this decline was a mere -.03%, not very different from a ‘no change’ day, the real news is that this index ran counter to the other two.

In the 14,525 trading days since 1950, the S&P change diverged from the direction of the DJIA close only 1,530 times. Of these, 703 were like today’s deviation: a plus DJIA day matching a minus S&P day. In the other 827 differences, the plus was in the S&P’s favor.

Today is the 17^th time this year that the DJIA gain matched the S&P loss, much greater than the 80 times in the six previous years since 2000.

Of course the S&P loss at -.03% is quite small, and not very different from a zero change close, but nevertheless the cross result, loss vs. gain, did occur.

Similar to last Monday, September 17, markets turned down today.

The S&P 500 lost .53% today, compared to -.51% last week.

The DJIA loss of .44%, is steeper than the week ago -.29%

And NASDAQ, off only .12% , did better than last Monday’s .8% loss.

Today was a -1/+1/-1/+2/-1 (down today/ after a plus day/ following a negative day/ after two positive closes/ following a down day) day for all three indices.

Tabulating these days, in the table below, it is clear that today’s declines are substantially smaller than the average of past losses, Moreover, the size of these losses, on average, are greater since 2000 than before, in the last –20^th– century.

Number of-1/+1/-1/+2/-1 Days and Average Loss

Since 1950 Since 2000

INDEX Days % Days %

DJIA 99 -.63 23 -.84

NASDAQ* 41 -.63 34 -.69

S&P 500 90 -.60 27 -.70

*NASDAQ data start on 1/5/1972.

While all three indexes closed higher than last Friday, the DJIA’s 2.81% increase was a bit ahead of the S&P500’s 2.76% and the 2.73% of NASDAQ.

Monday’s down close was followed by two up days, a drop on Thursday and the week closed with an uptick.

NASDAQ led the indexes today, with its .64% gain; the S&P500 followed, turning in a .46% increase, with the DJIA trailing with just a plus .39% improvement.

The chances of having a second straight negative day (about 10% of all trading days) are almost the same as the 11 – 12% of upticks following a down day.

Another gain, on top of the previous two uptick days, evaded the market on September 20. The S&P500 suffered a .67% decline, steeper than the NASDAQ -.48% and the DJIA -.35%

The record shows that a third consecutive positive close occurs more often than today’s -1/+2 (one negative close after two straight gains).

The S&P500 experienced a third successive positive close 7.7% of the time since 1950, but dipped on the third day 5.7% of the time. The NASDAQ ratio is better, with three positive closes happening 1.85 times as frequently as the +1/-2 pattern. The DJIA has a similar record, but with a 1.23 ratio, the smallest of these three market indexes.

A rise of just 1.35% separates today’s DJIA close from the high reached on July 19. The other major indexes require only a slightly greater increase: the S&P500 is 1.50% below its top and with another 2.03% growth, the NASDAQ will reach its previous high.

Today’s more moderate gains, rather than a decline/correction from yesterday’s surge, are in line with past patterns. More ups, than downs, are recorded when the previous close exceeds 2 percent. The table below details these experiences: up days occur about 58% to 61% of the time after gains of 2 to 2.5 percent.

Changes Day After Gains of 2.0% to 2.5%

Index All Up Down

DJIA 141 84 57

NASDAQ 193 118 75

S&P500 197 115 82

All three market averages posted gains greater than 2%, after the Fed cut the Federal Funds rate by 50 basis points.

The S&P500 led the other averages, increasing by 2.91%; NASDAQ gained 2.71% and the DJIA was up 2.51%.

The S&P500 has not gained 2.91% or more since March 2003; indeed, since 1950 only 64 trading days closed 2.91% higher – with just 24 of these occurring since January 2000.

As for the NASDAQ, it recorded 149 closes greater than today’s 2.71%, 106 of these coming after January 2000.

Since 1950, the DJIA posted only 125 gains in excess of 2.51%, with only 33 in this century.

The market turned down on the week’s first trading day, after the four positive closes since last Monday.

Today’s decline – a -1/+4 ( one negative close after four straight gains) – is about the same magnitude as the 264 other -1/+4 days since 1950.

But today’s .51% loss is not as steep as the average .79% decline on such days since the start of 2000.