Small gains closed another day, with the NASDAQ up .15 percent, the S&P500 plus .10 percent and the DJIA adding .09 percent. Changes of this small size are a glitch: they total to about 150 closes, of the 2,760 days since January 2000. That comes to about five percent. Yet these unusual magnitudes dominate the market since last week.
Around this time of the year, significant interest about next years prices takes center stage. At one time, so the adage went, January prices typically rise.
The diagram below plots the changes of the S&P500 in these two contiguous months over the last ten years. With the December changes in red, and the following January closes in blue, the directions, and their changes, come into clear view.
They show that in most years, prices deteriorate in January; only two, perhaps three, Januarys saw further appreciation over the December record.
DJIA .09 percentNASDAQ .15 percent
S&P500 .10 percent