The payment and point-of-sale solutions company loved by small businesses, Square (SQ), did something today that it has not done in over two years and only done once before in the stock’s history: it closed below its 200-day moving average. Three years to the date of its IPO, SQ fell 10.74% today to drop to $62.97.  Today’s decline has brought the stock 37.8% off of its high from October 1st of this year.  This drop has also brought it well below support in the mid $60’s from the final days of October.  It is safe to say that Square’s fantastic uptrend since its IPO has finally been broken.

In recent weeks, discount retail stores of the likes of TJX Companies (TJX), Burlington Stores (BURL), Kohl’s Corp. (KSS), and Target (TGT) have gotten crushed. Today alone, Target (TGT) fell 2.4%, BURL fell 3.2%, and TJX fell almost 5%. Earlier in the month, these retailers had reached or came close to 52-week highs only to fall in dramatic fashion; some, like TJX, into correction territory (down +10% from highs). These companies are major retail chains focused on discount clothing and home furnishings, so headed into the holiday season, you may expect better performance of these names. But historically, it is a coin flip. They only see positive returns around half the time from now through the rest of the year. Kohl’s (KSS) is the most frequently positive merely at 53.85%; conversely, TGT underperforms the most as it is positive only 41.67%. Again, it is a coin flip so it is hard to say that the holidays necessarily help the stocks. As you can see in the charts below from our Chart Scanner tool, even from a technical standpoint, the picture is not great with these names having fallen through recent support levels.

Like many things in the markets recently, finding a reason for the drop is hard to do. Looking to another major retailer, last week we saw Nordstrom (JWN) drop big on a weak earnings report, but the recent declines in these discount names cannot be blamed on poor earnings—they have yet to report.  Over the course of the next few days, these names’ Q3 reports will begin to roll in. These names typically see worse performance in reaction to their Q3 earnings compared to other periods. In total, these retailers are positive around half the time in the day following earnings, but in response to Q3 earnings, with the exception of BURL, this group is less frequently positive. BURL looks the best rising on average 6.21% for the full day after earnings. The next best is a long way down with Kohl’s (KSS) only rising an average 0.5%. TJX and ROST, on the other hand, typically experience losses.

It may sound hard to believe, but for all the talk about how well the stock market has done under President Trump, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is actually up less (25.69%) since he took office than it was under President Obama (40.94%) at the same point in his Presidency!  The chart below shows the DJIA’s historical returns during each US President’s first 668 calendar days in office going back to 1900.  With a gain of 25.7%, the DJIA’s performance during President Trump’s first 668 calendar days in office is still well above the historical average for all US Presidents (15.59% – see table below) and even better when you compare it to just Republican Presidents (11.09%).

Looking at just the market’s performance since each President took office, however, may be considered a bit misleading given the fact that the market also tends to react swiftly once a President is elected.  Based on this measure, even after the recent pullback in stock prices, the DJIA’s returns since President Trump was elected until now (741 days) are still the best since Eisenhower and more than twice the returns of Obama at the same point following his election in 2008.

In the table below, we have listed the DJIA’s returns for each US President since 1900 in both their first 668 days in office as well as the first 741 days after they were elected or assumed office.  In the case of Presidents who weren’t elected, we used the date they first assumed office as the starting point for each period.  Obviously, no method of measuring stock market returns is perfect and a lot of the rankings often are impacted by the political bias of the person reporting them.  In terms of the charts above, Republicans will likely dismiss the first and focus on the second, while Democrats will do the opposite.  As an investor, you should pay little attention.  The basic takeaway here is that big moves over a short period of time can have a big impact on how the stock market supposedly views a President.

This morning, our Trend Analyzer is more or less unchanged from this time last week.  With the exception of the Nasdaq (QQQ), every major US Index ETF is in the same section of its trading range as five days ago.  Along with QQQ, the Micro-cap ETF (IWC) is currently oversold while all others are unchanged at neutral.  The Dow (DIA) has seen the largest downward movement within its trading range recently.  It had been the only name above its 50-DMA, but with losses for a solid portion of last week, it has fallen closer to oversold.  Despite this, unlike its peers, the ETF has still held onto its uptrend.