Courtesy of Doug Short.
The S&P 500 didn’t exactly celebrate the weak Advance Estimate of Q1 GDP, but it certainly didn’t fret over this disappointing headline metric. The index popped at the open, had second thoughts during the first hour of trading, but brushed off any anxieties about GDP, the downgrade of Spain, etc. to finish with a modest 0.24% gain, which puts it once again above the 1,400 level. The S&P 500 posted a 1.8% gain for the week and is now up 11.59% year-to-date, which is only 1.10% off its interim closing high set on April 2nd.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 107.4% above the March 2009 closing low and 10.3% 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.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
