With the DJIA continuing its daily decline for the sixth day in a row, and the NASDAQ and S&P500 now down for the fourth straight session, confirm the outlook of the pessimists and doubters. Indeed, only one other session, since 1950, has this pattern but because that occurred on January 5, 2005, when no significant changes followed, it fails to allow a comparison, or a projection, for the 2010 future.
Furthermore, looking at days on which all three averages registered four successive declines, no substantial evidence points to a soon-to-follow market downturn. Indeed, looking at the figure which highlights these days with a triangle, this combination happens just as the preceding decline ends and a turnaround begins.
Therefore the current down days fail to confirm, nor even indicate, that the current recovery is at an end.
Finally, in comparing this cycle, now in its 332nd day since its October 2007 peak, with the sequence of the 2000/2003 decline, the far shorter decline, reaching its trough 355 days after its peak, stands out as the major difference between these declines. In addition, eyeballing their time profiles, reveals quite a few similarities in their up and down movements even though there are not many parallels in timing. DJIA -.42 percent
NASDAQ -37 percent
S&P500 -.32 percent