July 31, 2008
At todays close, these indices are just a smidgen higher than last Friday. So the result of this weeks two strong upswings and two days of substantial decline have netted out to some ten points for each index.
Moreover, except for yesterday, when prices rose for the second day in a row, the other five closes posted alternate gains and losses.
So, since Thursday a week ago, the market has been on a rocking horse run, putting together a chain of plus days and negative days. There are just three such patterns since 1950, and all occurred since July 2000.
What was happening to prices on these three days? The first one, on June 5, 2000, coincided with the start of the huge price drop of 2000-2003.
The second, on March 3, 2003, happened at the bottom of that cycle.
The market was rising, but took a pause, when the third strike occurred, on January 13, 2005.
As for the day following this chain, the DJIA posted losses on each of the succeeding days. The NASDAQ and the S&P500 managed to rise on one of those three days, but fell on the other two.
DJIA -1.78. percent
NASDAQ . - .18. percent
S&P500 -1.31 percent