See-Sawing once again wiped out yesterdays increases: the NASDAQ dropped -1.24 percent, the S&P500 lost -.60 percent while the DJIA fell -.51 percent. So the one step forward and one step backward phase goes on for another day. Yet the continuity of these wavelike changes must not let us fail to observe that the impact is different for each of these three indices.
Todays diagram concentrates on the proportion that each days price bears to its 2007 high. The loss that each index suffered is about the same during the decline and for the early part of the recovery. But then the NASDAQ spurted relative to the DJIA and the S&P500; by mid-April the NASDAQ had recovered 90 percent of its October 2007 high. Yet the DJIA and the S&P500 lagged behind: each of these stood at 79 percent. However the faster paced NASDAQ recovery lost momentum.
At the end of todays trading, that 11 point advantage had shrunk to just 6 for the DJIA and 9 percentage points for the S&P500.
Focus not just on the decline in the recovery rate since April; concentrate also on its differential impact. Those ratios tell their own story. Given the persistent doubt about the economys resurgence, continuing unemployment and opposing views on inflation or deflation ahead, these will influence each index differently as demonstrated by todays lack of uniformity.
DJIA -.51 percent NASDAQ -1.24 percent
S&P500 - .60 percent