too many holidays this week Mon, 06th Sep: Labor Day (US) Labor Day (Canada) Unification Day (Bulgaria) Defense of Pakistan Day (Pakistan) Independence Day (Swaziland) Tue, 07th Sep: Another Look Unlimited Day Grandma Moses Day Neither Rain Nor Snow Day Play Days (09/07-09/11) Anniversary - Google Founding Birthday - Buddy Holly (musician) Independence Day (Brazil) Wed, 08th Sep: Nixon Pardon Day Perigean Spring Tides Rosh Hashanah (begins at sundown - Jewish New Year) UN International Literacy Day Anniversary - Star Trek TV Premiere Independence Day (Macedonia) Thu, 09th Sep: Eid-Al-Fitr (begins at sundown - Celebrating the Fast - Islamic) Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) Wonderful Weirdos Day Admission Day (California) Birthday - Colonel Sanders (KFC) Chrysanthemum Day (Japan) Independence Day (Tajikistan) Fri, 10th Sep: Eid-Al-Fitr (Celebrating the Fast - Islamic) Swap Ideas Day Birthday - Karl Lagerfeld (fashion designer) Sat, 11th Sep: Anniversary - World Trade Center/Pentagon Attacks 911 Day Libraries Remember Patriot Day Birthday - Harry Connick, Jr. (singer) Birthday - O. Henry (author) New Year's Day (Ethiopia) Sun, 12th Sep: Feast of Gedalya (Jewish) National Grandparent's Day National Hug Your Hound Day Video Games Day
Though you weren't asking me, I think that's a question without a definite answer, although surely there must be a definition in a textbook somewhere. My own definition is that anything trading below its 200 day MA is in a bear market. So by that definition we could say the broader market has been undecided, or skittish, since the third week in May as it's been oscillating with a mean below the 200-day but periodically poking above. So I guess I couldn't argue with anyone who wants to call this a bear market, but I prefer to call it undecided or undeclared. As of today most of us are probably expecting the S&P to fill the gap created on Sept. 3rd by dropping back to 1090, or so. Whereto from there, no telling. But it would seem slightly more likely that we continue to climb because of the higher low made the last week in August (we haven't made a higher high yet!). This isn't rocket science, its just a best guess based on the simplest technical analysis imaginable.
I look at pure & simple stats to determine bull/bear status. On a lognormal basis over the very long term, moves of +/-8% qualify as noise. Over that you could call a true correction within whatever the trend is. Two std's amount to 16%, and if you manage a drop from the high of that much, then absolutely, it's a bear. Less than that is just normal random variations within whatever the trend happens to be, which since we're up quite a bit from that 666 low (certainly more than 16%), qualifies as an uptrend.
"...Correlation has been particularly pronounced for companies with larger market capitalizations, and for the larger funds. James said that 90 to 95 percent of large-capitalization stocks have tended to move in the same direction this year, up from about 70 percent prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Lehman Bankruptcy At Eaton Vance Corp. in Boston, Duncan Richardson, the chief equity investment officer, said investors havenât been differentiating between high-quality stocks, or those with better cash flow, earnings and stability, and lower-quality companies. That has hurt returns of the $16 billion Eaton Vance Large-Cap Value Fund this year. The fund, which aims to beat the Russell 1000 Value Index, has seen its correlation coefficient rise to 0.99 this year from 0.87 prior to the crisis. âThe only thing that goes up in a crisis is correlation,â Richardson said. âIt does make it very hard for stock pickers in an environment like this.â Contrafundâs correlation coefficient is at 0.9864, close to the record of 0.9907 reached in April 2009, according to Bloomberg data. That compares with 0.8438 in the months before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. âCloset Indexingâ The largest U.S. stock fund, the $148 billion Growth Fund of America, has seen correlation increase to 0.99 this year, from 0.84 in mid-2008. The fund, managed by a team at Los Angeles-based Capital Group Cos., has declined 3.4 percent this year, 2.5 percentage points more than the S&P 500âs returns, including reinvested dividends. For the $37 billion Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, run by San Francisco-based Dodge & Cox, the correlation measure was also 0.99 this year, compared with low of 0.81 prior to the height of the crisis in late 2008. The correlation coefficients were calculated using percentage changes on 120 days of Bloomberg data. ..." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...correlation-frustrates-top-stock-pickers.html is the current high correlation just the consequence of 2008-09 market drop or is it warning us about more troubles for the market ahead?
Bulls are weak, a few more days like today and support at 1040 can easily be broken and taken out, if that happens sub 1000 on the SPX....
What makes you think that? There's a Florida Pastor who wants to burn the Quran to mark the anniversary of 9/11.