September10, 2008
Stocks recovered, regaining some of their losses of Tuesday. The pattern describing all three indices for the past two days is +1/-1 or, in words, an advance following yesterdays decline. So far this year, there have been 14 such sequences.
As for the next day, the NASDAQ had nine increases, the S&P500 had 8 upticks and the DJIA had an even number of decreases and increases.
One further consideration is that on the last two repeats of this pattern, all three indices closed higher on the following day.
Considering the overall pattern of trading in 2008, the NASDAQ has closed higher on 78 days, and has lost ground on 92 days. This record makes for a positive/negative ratio of only 45.9 percent. By contrast, in 2006, selected as the last all growth year, the NASDAQ positive/negative ratio was 53.4 percent
The DJIA has done better, with a 49.4 percent ratio in 2008, compared to 54.2 percent positive closes in 2006.
The S&P500 is the only index with more upticks than declines this year; it has a 51.5 percent ratio. Nevertheless, it too, is off the 2006 pace, when it had 56.2 percent positive closes.
For the Record:
Comparing todays gains for the three averages with their history, as posted yesterday, shows that their advances today are consistent with the past pattern of more advances than declines.
DJIA .34 percent
NASDAQ .85 percent
S&P500 .61 percent