September 5, 2008
While todays NASDAQ loss was the smallest in a week, it, nevertheless fell once more. Since January 2000, there have been just 32 such strings of five successive losses.
In contrast, the S&P500 eased up .44 percent, posting its first positive close in five days. The DJIA also had a mild increase, of .29 percent, changing its direction to positive from yesterdays decline.
This pattern, the NASDAQ having five successive negative closes, while the other two indices had single day increases, occurred just five times in the past nine years. Moreover, on the next day, all three indices fell four times, and increased on only one day.
Considering the next day for the NASDAQs 32 incidents of five straight declines, 19 were positive while 13 went negative for the sixth day. Moreover, none of these series of five straight declines took place during the drastic decline of 2000 to 2002.
As for this weeks performance, the three indices have fallen back to their levels of Friday, July 11, some nine weeks ago. It was the DJIAs fourth straight losing week and the third for the NASDAQ and the S&P500.
DJIA .29 percent
NASDAQ -.14 percent
S&P500 .44 percent