A second straight advance of the S&P500, combined with a NASDAQ gain and a DJIA loss occurred merely 22 previous times in the more than 15,000 trading days since 1950, the beginning of our data base. Yet today’s close comes just days after its last appearance on the 17th of last month. All told, this is the fourth occasion since the middle of last year, on July 3 2012.
Whereas this infrequency is bound to catch our attention, its very scarcity precludes projections, let alone provide statistical robustness. Our diagram reveals prices for the S&P500, the NASDAQ and the DJIA advancing on the following day on each of the last three repeats. And while these last gains were modest -ranging from .09 to .62 percent for these three indices- they ran from minus 3.36 to plus 3.88 percent in the previous eight iterations earlier in this century.
In the past, the following day saw increases outnumbering declines two-to-one. Further, this favorable ratio holds both for the current bull market as it does for the three repeats during the 2000/2003 decline.
DJIA -.26 percent
NASDAQ .33 percent
S&P500 .06 percent
