While the NASDAQ was off -.67 percent, both the DJIA and the S&P500 were down just -.09 percent. These declines are close to the median change, in the last eight years, for the Tuesday after the Presidents Day holiday.
But the range of gains and declines is so large that these medians fail to provide a meaningful indication of the typical trading day result. The NASDAQs steepest fall off since 2000 is -4.41 percent and its greatest increase is 2.78 percent. Yet its median change comes to just -.76 percent. So whereas todays loss of -.67 percent is smaller than the median of the last eight years, this statistic falls short of telling us just what could happen.
The historical statistics for the Wednesday of the holiday week should be interpreted in the same wary manner. Even though there as many up days as declines -the S&P500 has four of each, the DJIA has five gains and three losses, and the NASDAQs record is three gains and five losses- and the median changes range from -.21 percent to plus .21 percent, the closes since 2000 range from -2.13 percent to plus 3.84 percent for the NASDAQ, -1.90 percent to plus 2.01 percent for the DJIA, and -1.85 percent to plus 1.35 percent for the S&P500.
DJIA -.09 percent
NASDAQ -.67 percent
S&P500 -.09 percent