December 19, 2008
Price changes although quite small were not uniform today. The DJIA dropped by -.30 percent, whereas the S&P500 moved up, but only by .29 percent. The NASDAQ posted the largest change, increasing some .77 percent.
Changes as small as todays DJIA and S&P500 are rare. This year, for example, the S&P500 has recorded only 20 closes in the range from zero to .25 percent. These represent just eight percent of the 246 trading days of 2008. In other years, however, these amounted to about 16 percent.
The DJIA history is similar: 22 days in 2008 with changes in the -.3 percent to 0 percent, accounting for nine percent of all trades. This compares to 16 percent of the trading days since 1950.
While the NASDAQ increase of .77 percent being larger- occurred more frequently, accounting for almost 39 percent of all trades since 1950, this pattern is consistent with the other two indices. In 2008, trades in the 0-.77 percent range were just half of this figure, at 16 percent.
That means all indices share the experience that small daily changes are running at just half the rate of other years.
DJIA -.30 percent
NASDAQ .77 percent
S&P500 .25 percent