May 5, 2008
The week opener featured a down ride for most of the day; at the end the DJIA lost -.68 percent, the NASDAQ -.52 percent while the S&P500 retreated -.45 percent.
Today was the second successive negative post for the NASDAQ; it, more than the other two indices, has a recent pattern of up and down closes on alternate days, with the longest run of three successive days occurring on April 9. And that was for three negative closes in a row. To find the last time that the NASDAQ had three positive closes in a row, one has to go back all the way to March 25.
Both the DJIA and the S&P500 closes, more often, persist in the same direction for three and four days in a row, be they negative or positive.
On Mondays, the market tends to move higher more often than it declines, even though that difference may not be very large. Of the 391 trading Mondays since January 2000, the S&P500 had only 187 previous negative days but 204 positive closes. That is, the S&P 500 turns down on 48 percent of all Mondays.
The NASDAQ history shows a similar if slightly larger proportion of losing Mondays; 49 percent in this decade.
The DJIA has the fewest negative Mondays; just 181 to the 187 of the S&P500 and the 192 of the NASDAQ; making the DJIA ratio of 46 percent the best Monday performer of the three.
DJIA -.68 percent
NASDAQ -.52 percent
S&P500 -.45 percent
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