Archive for September, 2007

S&P500 Up 1.69% for Week

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

While today’s uptick is a mere .02%, nevertheless, the market managed four plus days after Monday’s loss. Yet despite the week’s gain, the close still lags 5 points behind the previous post dip high of 1489 posted on the day after Labor Day.

With closing prices rising every day after Monday’s .13% decline, the market experienced a +4 (successive positive closes) pattern for the eighth time this year. Since 2000, only 57 such trading days occurred, while 607 of these took place since 1950.

 

Third Straight Up Close for S&P500

Friday, September 14th, 2007

The September 13 gain of .84% follows Wednesday’s just plus .0045% and the substantial 1.36% increase of Tuesday. This is the 12th +3 (successive positive closes) day this year.

Since 1950, the S&P500 scored only 1114 three in a row up days, with 118 of these since 2000.

The average +3 gain since 2000 is .62%; while 27 of these increases were greater than today’s + .86%, the other 91 closes were smaller.

S&P500 Edges Up After A Day of Ups and Downs

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

After a day of positive trading, the total gain was only .0048% — that is, 5/1000 of a percent.

For the record, only 449 trading days had positive closes of less than .05% — that is 5/100 of a percent; and 51 of these took place since January 2000.

As for closes in the red, but not in excess of -.05%, 43 occurred since 2000, and 383 since 1950.

Together, these closes in the range between -1/2 percent and + 1/2 percent, constitute 6.7 percent of trading days since 1950, and 4.9 percent since January 2000.

S&P500 Gains 1.36% After Two Negative Days

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Today’s close follows two successive declines after a previous gain. This is the fourth time this +1/-2/+1 trading pattern occurred since the beginning of July. The diagram highlights these similarities.

sep-11-07-close.gif

Since 1950, there have been 363 of these +1/-2/+1 closes, with 62 since 2000, and six so far this year.

The S&P500 1.36% gain today compares favorably with the .62% average increase on this fourth day of the +1/-2/+1 trading pattern.

Second Down Day in a Row for S&P500

Monday, September 10th, 2007

Today’s -.13% is milder than Friday’s -1.69% — yet two negative days in a row happen fewer than once every eight trading dates.

Some 922 of the 1936 trading days since January 2000 posted losses (48% of all days); while on only 130 occasions (14% of the losing days) was the loss smaller than today .


S&P500 Drops -1.68% — Week Loses – 1.39%

Friday, September 7th, 2007

Today’s -1.68% close is the 150th time that the S&P500 lost more than 1.5% in the 1931 trading days since January 2000.

By contrast, 566 such closes occurred in 14,153 trading days since January 1950.

So far, with such declines exceeding 7.7% of all trading days, this century is turning in nearly double the historical 3.9% average of trading days with losses sharper than -1.5%.


Moreover, the magnitude of this loss places today’s close near the 5th percentile – that is only 5% of all losses since 2000 exceeded -1.83%.

S&P500 Gains .42%

Thursday, September 6th, 2007


Today’s positive close continues the pattern of alternate up and down days. Combining this positive close, with yesterday’s negative, and the previous two consecutive plus days, describes a sequence of +1 / -1 / +2 days .

Moreover, the record shows the sequence of +1 / -1 / +2 days occurring 72 times in the 1,929 trading days since 2000. The average increase is .79% , with the range extending from .04% to 2.36%

S&P500 Drops 1.15%

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

With an equal number of down and up closes –five of each– in the last ten trading days, today’s final 1,472.29 is higher, though barely, than the 1,464.07 of August 22.

In the past seven years, a negative close followed two successive gains 139 times, while a third higher close occurred only 119 times.

But when the two gains were between 1% and 2% –as on Friday and Tuesday– the third day closed up between 1% and 2% only five times, while there were seven days with losses between -1% and -2%.

However, six of those losses were smaller than -1%, while one, on August 23, 2002, dropped by 2.27%.

S&P GAINS 1.04% — CLOSES UP TWO DAYS IN A ROW

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

The market continued its upward momentum, achieving an up 1.04% close after the Labor Day holiday on top of last Friday’s 1.12% gain.

These two back to back positive closes deserve attention. There have been only 488 of these since January 2000.

Two successive one percent closes are even rarer, occurring only 37 times in this century.

Today and Friday’s twin greater than one percent gain is the first such double plus close since November 2004.

S&P Gains 1.12% — Closes August Up .56%

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

With this August 31 close, the total market drop has been cut to 5.1% since topping out on July 19.

In the 32 trading days since, the market closed up 17 times and turned down 15 times, with the median gain of .72% just half the magnitude of the median -1.39 decline.