The market has been static since scoring a new high on Monday of last week. Daily changes remain small, even though the NASDAQ crossed an intermediate top.
Our diagram plots the current S&P500 and the time paths of the last two bull markets, just before and after their highs. It shows that the 2000 and the 2007 cycles share quite similar profile during the first ten days of their declines. However, the present market does not parallel these contours.
While prices fell quite sharply in the earlier cycles, the past seven days present a somewhat flat profile. Moreover, though last week’s shallow deep is quite similar to the 2007 down and up kink, it will take more observations to confirm if indeed such a parallel exists.
Keep in mind that the current market is in its 1,104th day of expansion since the last March 2009 low. Its span, so far, lies between the 1,059 day bull market of 1996/2000 and the 1,154 day expansion that ended in 2007.
DJIA -.01 percent
NASDAQ .48 percent
S&P500 .04 percent
