A Bad Week and a Worse Quarter

March 28, 2008


While the NASDAQ stayed positive today, increasing by just .14 percent, the DJIA and the S&P500 fell by -1.17 percent and -1.07 percent, respectively.

It was negative week number eight for the NADAQ and the S&P500, in the 13 weeks of this year, and the seventh for the DJIA.

Yet results for the quarter that ended today –the first quarter– failed even to match this disappointing outcome. The NASDAQ lost -14.75 percent since the end of December, its second worst performance since 2001. The S&P500, off by -10.43 percent, also experienced a deeper decline only in the first quarter of 2001. These poor numbers enabled the DJIA, losing just -7.90 percent, to claim the best record of these indices.

Ordinarily, the first quarter of the year, is more often positive. Indeed, the NASDAQ failed to advance just 13 times since its creation 37 years ago. The history of the other two indices is not as favorable, both, nvertheless, scoring gains in 60 percent of the first quarters since 1950.

DJIA -.70 percent
NASDAQ -.86 percent
S&P500 -.80 percent

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