S&P 500 Just 0.57% Below Its All-Time High

By: PhilStockWorld

Courtesy of Doug Short writes: With no economic news to juice the market (or scare it), the S&P 500 probably took its opening cue from the eurozone, where most of the indexes churned in the shallow red. The 500 opened lower and hit its intraday low, off 0.25%, in the first 15 minutes of trading. But by late morning it emerged into the green and closed the day with a gain of 0.32%, five basis points off its intraday high. The index clearly has an eye on its cousin the Dow, which keeps setting new all-time highs. The S&P 500 is fractionally less than nine points, make that 0.57%, from its all-time high. Will tomorrow see a new S&P 500 record?

Here’s a 5-minute look at the day.

The market has been closed for an hour as I type this. I’ve been waiting for the final volume data from Stockcharts, which is usually available 30 or 40 minutes after the closing bell. But not today. So here’s a daily chart of the SPY ETF, showing the volume. In fact, this ETF gives us a better idea of trader sentiment. I see that today’s volume is just a bit above half its 50-day moving average. In fact, the seven-day SPY winning streak had only one day, the first, with strong volume and another day (Friday) that was close to the 50-MA.

The S&P 500 is now up 9.12% for 2013 at a new interim.

From a longer-term perspective, the index is 130.0% above the March 2009 closing low and 0.57% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.

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.

- Phil

www.philstockworld.com

Philip R. Davis is a founder of Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com), a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders. Mr. Davis is a serial entrepreneur, having founded software company Accu-Title, a real estate title insurance software solution, and is also the President of the Delphi Consulting Corp., an M&A consulting firm that helps large and small companies obtain funding and close deals. He was also the founder of Accu-Search, a property data corporation that was sold to DataTrace in 2004 and Personality Plus, a precursor to eHarmony.com. Phil was a former editor of a UMass/Amherst humor magazine and it shows in his writing -- which is filled with colorful commentary along with very specific ideas on stock option purchases (Phil rarely holds actual stocks). Visit: Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com)

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