January 23, 2009
The final price of the DJIA retreated from yesterday by -.54 percent- while, by the end of the mostly negative day, the NASDAQ managed a gain of .81 percent and the S&P500 .54 percent. Such diverse results are not common, yet they have occurred on 4.5 percent of all trading days since 1950.
Nor is there a relationship between these closes and market performance. Divergent closes account for 4.6 percent of the total in years of climbing prices, and while the ratio falls to 4.1 percent in negative years, this difference lacks significance.
As for the next day, consider the record since 2008. There have been eight divergent closes since last March 25. The NASDAQ declined on each of the following days. While the index lost a mere -.26 percent once, there were five losers greater than one percent.
The DJIA and the S&P500, had one advance that was minimal, .02 percent and .16 percent, the other seven closes were negative. Moreover, these ranged all the way down to -4.71 percent, with four changes deeper than minus one percent.
DJIA -.56 percent
NASDAQ .81 percent
S&P500 .54 percent