January 13, 2009
The NASDAQ and the S&P500 moved into positive changes today, but not until late in the session. The DJIA, however, stayed in the red, even though its value increased at the end of the day. Thus, this index has now declined for five straight trading days. This in itself is unusual; for as noted in the previous blog the chances of an increase after yesterdays pattern were two out of three.
There have been just 23 days since the turn of the century when the DJIA fell for five successive days. Relating these to the pattern of the market, we see that 14 of these occurred when prices were in a long-term retreat. The other nine came in the bull market between December 2003 and July 2007.
In the past, six straight declines in the DJIA occurred ten times since January 2000: five times when the market was rising, and five times during declines. The S&P500 shared this negative momentum only once, while the NASDAQ declined twice.
DJIA -.30 percent
NASDAQ .50 percent
S&P500 .18 percent