With the S&P500 down after yesterday’s advance, while the DJIA closed higher for the second straight day and the NASDAQ down for the third consecutive session, we have a combination seen just two other times since 1996. One of these happened just 20 days after the market turned down in March 2000. The other close was in the middle of the 2007/2009 contraction.
Our diagram includes the four additional instances of this pattern before 1996. It reveals that these, as well as the ‘since 1996’ events, did not foreshadow a major price change, nor begin or end, a bear or bull market.
Yet on the following day in April 2000, the S&P500 advanced 3.33 percent; in June 2008, the S&P500 dropped -1.69 percent. The NASDAQ changes were even larger: plus 6.57 percent in 2000 and minus 2.24 percent in 2008.
DJIA .20 percent
NASDAQ -.40 percent
S&P500 -.14 percent
