The S&P500 gained 8.27 percent since April 18 when the latest rally began. That torrid pace of the last 23 days has been beat just 116 times in the 3,364 trading days since January 2000.
The NASDAQ was even hotter, adding 10.61 percent in the past 23 days, though the DJIA lagged these gains, increasing ‘only’ 5.85 percent since this latest rally began in mid-April.
For those doubting the rarity of this acceleration, consider today’s diagram. Showing the S&P500’s recovery from the March 2009 low, we see only 61 occasions during which the gain rate exceeded 8.27 percent.
Yet, almost half of these –some 26- came on the heels of the market’s recovery from the previous bear market. This frequency fell to 12 in the following year, and then to 11. The last happenings, two in January 2012, were 331 trading days ago!
So let us celebrate these latest gains but not forget their infrequency while preparing for the market’s return to a more normal pace.
And more normal does not mean retreat or decay, but average. That, for the last three bull markets amounts to 1.08 percent for the S&P500; for the DJIA and the NASDAQ those average good time 23 day advances are 1.49 and 2.50 percent.
DJIA .06 percent
NASDAQ -.01 percent
S&P500 -.06 percent
By Max Moszer.
Moszer, founder and publisher of Virginia Economic Impact and of the telephone survey, The Virginia Consumer, has also been editor of Business Economics, the journal of the National Association of Business Economists. Currently Professor Emeritus of Economics at Virginia Commonwealth University, Moszer received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania after a career in the business world.