Streaks of the S&P 500

Apr 2, 2024

In last Thursday’s Closer, we spotlighted how the S&P 500 has consistently traded at overbought levels this year.  Through early afternoon on Tuesday, the S&P 500 was on pace for its 52nd straight trading day of closing at least a full standard deviation above its 50-DMA which ranks as the longest streak since April 1998 (60 trading days).

Not only has the S&P 500 been extended versus its 50-DMA, but it has also traded overbought relative to its 200-DMA. Through early afternoon Tuesday (4/2), the index was also on pace for its 95th straight day of closing more than a standard deviation above its 200-DMA. Interestingly, compared to the 50-DMA streak the current streak of overbought closes versus the 200-DMA stands out much less.  Since 1928, there have been 34 streaks of at least 95 days with three of the longest lasting for over a year (1955, 1959, and 1996).

That is not to say the current run of longer-term overbought readings is unremarkable.  For much of that current streak, the S&P 500 has been extremely overbought (at least 2 standard deviations above its 200-DMA). Yesterday’s close marked the 41st day in a row with a 200-DMA extreme overbought reading.  That is the longest such streak since early 2018, and before that, there were only eight other similarly long or longer runs.  That being said, the S&P 500 decline of more than 1% in early afternoon trading today puts the index on pace to close 1.9 standard deviations above its 200-DMA, ending the current streak.

The S&P 500 being consistently overbought is not the only notable current streak.  As shown below, we are also nearing 100 days in a row in which the S&P 500 has been higher month-over-month (21-trading day rate of change).  At 97 trading days, this streak of month-over-month gains ranks as the ninth longest on record after surpassing a 96 trading day streak that ended on September 5th, 1980.