Courtesy of Doug Short.
March got off to a great start. The S&P 500 rallied from the gate and found nothing particularly disturbing in the intraday news to curb its enthusiasm. The index closed with a gain of 0.62% to set another interim high from the March 2009 close. The year-to-date advance is 9.26%
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 103.1% above the March 2009 closing low and 12.2% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
