USMarketView

August 29, 2008

Today was a replay of Monday, with the indices sustaining declines as high as -1.83 percent for the NASDAQ. The S&P500’s loss was limited to -1.37 percent; that was just a bit better than the DJIA’s -1.46 percent.

The relative magnitude of the sell off was substantial: Only 26 other days had steeper losses this year.

This Friday saw the third weekly loss in a row for the DJIA; it was the second straight decline for the NASDAQ and the S&P500. It seems that the recovery, started in the week ended July 18, has stalled out; and while the NASDAQ’s gains were the largest over this period, this index has also dropped substantially more, percentage wise, than the DJIA and the S&P500.

As for the opening after the holiday next week, looking at the past patterns after a single day’s decline, the S&P500 moved higher 17 times and fell only 9 times. The DJIA has one additional negative day, while the NASDAQ has a record of an even number of increases and decreases.

For the Record:

Comparing today’s declines for all three averages with their history, as posted yesterday, indicates that the past was not a good predictor, since the earlier results came in with a 3:1 preponderance of gains over losses.

DJIA -1.46 percent

NASDAQ… -1.83 percent

S&P500 -1.37 percent

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 12 042008000000Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:54:45 +0000 and is filed under Market Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.