The NASDAQ declined -.33 percent today, ending a chain of eight consecutive gains. Given that the sequence did continue to nine straight upticks only eleven times since 1999, Fridays negative day was overdue. Further, with the DJIA and the S&P500 scoring their fourth-in-a row advance on Friday, another positive close would have been surprising. The record book reveals not a single close of nine straight advances for the NASDAQ combined with five uninterrupted gains by the DJIA and the S&P500, ever.
Nevertheless, over the last 31 trading days since March 16, the DJIA moved up 10.3 percent, the NASDAQ added 9.8 percent and the S&P500 increased 8.5 percent. Yet these gains, as the diagram shows, are modest rather than extraordinary.
The diagram reveals sequences of rising prices pairing with increases in the 31-day moving average. It shows that the higher if not highest- moving averages occur when prices recover from earlier losses. Observably, when the market turns around from decline to advance, the moving average also increases. Thus it is highest in the period following the March 2009 recovery, after the market moved higher from its 2007 low. Similarly, the spate of recent declining prices, just days ago in mid-April, reduced the moving average. Yet that very action, in turn, made possible the escalation of the 31-day moving average over the last several days.
DJIA -.02 percent
NASDAQ -.33 percent
S&P500 -.18 percent