Stock Market Today: March 23rd - 27th, 2020

A "Quiet" Day
Mon, Mar 23, 2020

The S&P 500 finished the day with a decline of nearly 3%, but if you ask a lot of people who pay close attention to the markets, it didn't seem that bad. If you're one of those people, you can thank the phenomenon of recency bias. That's because even though the S&P 500 had a 2.93% move today, the average daily move in the four weeks heading into today was a gain or loss of 4.65%. In fact, over the last 20 trading days, there have only been five where the S&P 500's average daily move was smaller.

The chart below shows the S&P 500's average daily percentage move on a 20-day rolling basis going back to 1928. The S&P 500's four-week average daily move is now greater than any other time since the weeks after the 1929 crash more than 90 years ago. Moves of this magnitude are nearly unprecedented in the history of the stock market, and the one precedent we have isn't a very warm and fuzzy one. While we don't want to minimize the significance of the equity market's decline over the last month, the circumstances surrounding the two periods in terms of the reasons for the decline and the market dynamics during each period aren't all that similar to each other.

 

this streak ended today at 7.

and found my answer for the most green/red alternating days streak in a row on record.

it is 14 days, and it actually happened 7 years ago (march/april 2013)

 

been largely MIA today, but just catching up to some readings today, saw this one and thought to share in here as well.

evidently this drop from ATHs to down -30% in the SPX in just 22 trading days is a new all time record. never been done before. same with the DJ30, and that one is even more impressive as its been around for 125 years

 

stumbled across this one too and thought was also worth a quick share here.

here's a chart of the history of all bear markets since the very beginning for the SPX, with the dates of the bull peak and bear bottom, length of the bear in months, and the % return during the bear.

we're still nowhere near the dot com and GFC bears yet as those were -50% from peak to trough.

 

Good Tuesday morning traders and welcome to a new day, fresh start!

Here is this morning's pre-market news thread for those of you wanting to get a quick read before today's open-
<-- click there to read!

Hope everyone in here has a great trading day ahead today!

 

Morning Lineup - 3/24/20 - Limited Limits
Tue, Mar 24, 2020

Here we go again. Equity futures were trading on a limit up basis earlier but have since given up some of their gains. As things stand now, the US equity market is still poised to open up by about 4%, but where it goes from there is anyone's guess. Optimism this morning stems from hopes that both sides of the political divide are closer to a stimulus deal in Washington and that some of the hardest-hit hotspots from the coronavirus are showing varying levels of improvement.

Light at the end of the tunnel in the coronavirus outbreak is obviously important because the sooner we see the light, the closer the US economy will be to moving out of its coma. This has been a contentious topic over the last 24 hours. On the one side, there's a growing camp voicing concerns over the economic damage of the US and global shutdown. They are calling for at least a plan to be made for when, how, and under what conditions Americans will be allowed to go back to work. On the other side, a number of people argue that it's still way too early to even start thinking about starting the economy back up as there are many more pressing concerns facing the country.

We're not quite sure where the disagreement is here. In the words of NY Governor Cuomo, "you have to walk and chew gum in life." In other words, can't we address both the pressing Health Care needs facing the country and also start coming up with a plan for how Americans will be able to go back to work when the peak of the outbreak passes? Governments at all levels have come under enormous criticism for being caught flatfooted heading into this outbreak. Now that both Federal and state governments are thinking ahead, though, do they deserve the same criticism now? There are no easy answers in any of this, and no one is looking to get things back up and running if it is only going to make things worse, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be asking the questions and coming up with plans and strategies as new data and treatments come to light.

 

not to go full bear mode on you guys here, but i thought this was kind of an interesting chart that i had shared on my bear market thread earlier this morning.

looks like we hit the upper trendline of this 100 year bull channel on the DJ30.

i won't make any conclusions out of this chart. just something interesting i noted when looking on the super long term time frame