USMarketView

April 28, 2009

Prices fell enough in the last thirty minutes of trading to wipe out the small gains that dominated the day.  At the end, the DJIA lost -.11 percent, while the S&P500 decreased  -.28 percent and the NASDAQ dropped  -.33 percent.  There are not many days with losses as minor as these; just 106 since 1950, with 32 in this century.

A further rarity is the pattern of closes in the past three sessions.  While all three indices have a common count two losses in a row, the record of three days ago, on Friday, had the NASDAQ posting its fourth successive gain, while the DJIA and the S&P500 were recording only their second straight increase. 

Indeed, only two other days, since 1950, share this identical pattern, and both occurred in the early 1980’s.  Accordingly, no adequate benchmark is available to make a reliable reading of what tomorrow might bring.

Yet a look at the history of losses as minor as today, does provide a basis of comparison.  The record of the day following, however, shows that the number of further losses is not far different from the number turn arounds to positive change.

Monday’s analysis reported that in the past gains outnumbered declines on the following day.  Clearly, this is not the case, so history could not provide a guide of changes for today.

DJIA                  -.11 percent

NASDAQ          -.33 percent

S&P500             -.28 percent

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 12 052009000000Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:04:20 +0000 and is filed under Market Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.