The S&P500 and the NASDAQ have now extended their positive runs to five consecutive days. This follows the recent 10-day run where the S&P500 changed direction for ten consecutive days, and that in turn came after that index moved higher for ten successive sessions in the middle of March.
So today, we look at the previous two expansions to see how the daily time profiles compare to our current cycle.
The diagram plots all three price lines. The run that ended in March 2000 lasted 1,059 trading days while the later bull cycle topped out in 2007 after 1,154 days. This up-market has now completed 1,038 days.
Comparing these three time profiles, note that our current market is far less volatile than the previous cycles.
Further, both of the earlier expansions suffered significant price dips some 60 to 50 days before their peaks. Then prices soared dramatically, starting 25 days before hitting their ceilings.
With the ongoing expansion does not displaying these fluctuations, we can venture the possibility that its life span will continue. That is unless the current market behaves very differently from the historical norm.
DJIA .17 percent
NASDAQ .62 percent
S&P500 .40 percent
