Prices hardly changed today as the S&P500 closed up .01 percent and the DJIA lost -.01 percent; the NASDAQ, in gaining .13 percent posted the largest change of the day.
There are not many sessions with this profile: todays is merely the 23rd since 2000. To provide a more significant gap, we have expanded the range, from the actual results, to: less than .05 percent and greater than -.05 percent.The data reveal that the S&P500 closed 120 times in this range since January 2000; that the NASDAQ joined the other two indices, on only 3 occasions, when it also closed between plus and minus .05 percent for the day.
Todays graph of the S&P500 between 1999 and Fridays close uses a triangle to mark the 23 instances when both the S&P500 and the DJIA fell in this span. While not marked, the NASDAQ experienced the identical close once in the years 2004, 2009, and this past January.
The diagram does not reveal a coincidence of these events and immediate changes in the trend of prices. The best extrapolation, and the least quantitative, is these combinations accompany changes in the direction of future prices. Furthermore, these events rarely occur while the averages are falling; instead the greater frequency coincides with periods of rising prices.
DJIA - .01 percent
NASDAQ .13 percent
S&P500 .01 percent