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February 3, 2012                      Unique Combinations Continue

Today’s pattern of four straight gains for the NASDAQ, three advances in a row for the S&P500, and just one uptick for the DJIA, has not happened since 1996. Indeed our data show only one other close –in February 1983- with this combination. With the market moving higher in both cases, this latest repeat should be reassuring, since it signals continuation of recent gains.

We neglected to notice that the NASDAQ recovered its October 2007 high last week. That happened on January 25, and today this index closed at 103 percent of that 2007 high.

Both the DJIA and the S&P500 remain far behind, reaching 89.7 percent and 85.9 percent of their top, 2007, values.

The diagram reveals the recovery disparities of these indices. The NASDAQ’s two spurts account for these differences. Yet it fails to maintain that advantage, retreating to the lower rates of the other two indices. Notice however that the NASDAQ appears to be accelerating again.

DJIA                 1.23 percent

NASDAQ         1.61 percent

S&P500         1.39 percent

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 4th, 2012 at 12 022012000000Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:00:29 +0000 and is filed under Market Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.