April 9, 2009
A strong showing by the NASDAQ and the SP500 moved these prices up almost 4 percent, and even the laggard DJIA gained 3.15 percent. This strong showing, the best in the last 13 trading days, is, however, just the eighth positive close in this span.
Focusing on the pattern of recent closes, todays is a +2/-2/+4 series. That is, two straight positive closes, after a run of to negative days that followed four successive gains. This very much of an out of the ordinary event: for all three indices managed it only once since 1950. That day was October 6, 2006, while the market was moving higher in its resurgence from the previous trough in 2003.
The S&P500 by itself, however, experienced six of these runs in this century, while the DJIA and the S&P500 joined up three times since August 2002.
On October 7, 2006, the day following that only other three index gain, all the indices increased again. Yet the advances were quite small, ranging from .14 percent for the DJIA to .67 percent for the NASDAQ.
DJIA 3.15 percent
NASDAQ 3.89 percent
S&P500 3.80 percent