June 18, 2012 DJIA Down NASDAQ and S&P500 Up
The week opened with a rare pattern, a decline in the DJIA while the NASDAQ and the S&P500 posted their third straight gain. Today’s is the 23rd repeat since the beginning of this century, and the 50th since January 1950.
Our diagram shows these days; it reveals no particular pattern attributable to good or bad times. It does show, though, their frequency increasing steadily: from .4 percent of all days during the 2000/2003 decline to 1.0 percent since the March 2007 bottom.
It also shows more gains on the following day when prices are moving higher. Yet because the differences in frequency are quite small, we don’t see this feature having any predictive value.
DJIA -.20 percent
NASDAQ .78 percent
S&P500 .14 percent