Courtesy of Doug Short.
Today’s rally in Europe spilled over to the US, and our favorite benchmark, the S&P 500, exploded higher at the open, rallied to late morning and held onto the gains to close out Veteran’s Day, up 1.95% and 0.85% for the week. Today’s performance was good enough to put the index fractionally back in the green year-to-date, up 0.49%, although it is still 7.32% off the interim high of April 29 and about nine points below the 200-day moving average.
From an intermediate perspective, the index is 86.8% above the March 2009 closing low and 29.3% 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.
For a bit of international flavor, here’s a chart series that includes an overlay of the S&P 500, the Dow Crash of 1929 and Great Depression, and the so-called L-shaped “recovery” of the Nikkei 225. I update these weekly.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
