Prices changed direction again, reversing now for the third time in the past four trading days. While these oscillations are not rare, todays is the 40th repeat in the last 3,269 sessions in this century. We find little evidence of a systematic relationship between this pattern and the broad up and down swings of the last 13 years.
These accounted for 3.1 percent of the bull market days between 2003 and 2007, and for 3.0 percent of the closes during the following 2007/2009 decline. They represent less than a half-a-percent in the previous bear phase as well as in the current, since March 2009 upswing.
Moreover, the outlook for tomorrow is mixed. In the past, through good and bad times, prices moved higher only slightly more often than they declined. The DJIA shows the highest up ratio, with gains running 63 percent of the following days closes, with this number dropping to 58 percent for the NASDAQ and 55 percent for the S&P500.
DJIA .45 percent
NASDAQ .20 percent
S&P500 .55 percent
