May 19, 2008
Today the NASDAQ was out of step, falling, while the DJIA and the S&P500 moved higher. Last Friday, it was the S&P500, rising, while the other two indices declined.
This is the 11th such occurrence in the past 31 trading days: more than a third of all closes since April 1.
While this was happening, most of the daily movements -both up and down- were quite small. Yet these were interrupted by a day with a large change, running between one and almost four percent.
The NASDAQ had nine such closes since April 1: six positive and three negative. The S&P500 had eight, six of which were increases. Similarly, the DJIA had five large gains and two losses larger than 1.5 percent.
DJIA .32 percent
NASDAQ -.50 percent
S&P500 .09 percent