For traders with a short-term time horizon who are looking for big moves over a short period, we have updated our list of the S&P 1500 stocks trading above $10 that have the largest intraday high-low ranges (based on the average percent spread between the intraday high and low over the last 50 days).  The stocks are grouped based on whether they have a rising or falling 50-day moving average (DMA).  Stocks highlighted in gray are new to the list this month.

The S&P 500 may be within 2% of its all-time high, but the majority of stocks making up our list of most volatile stocks are currently in downtrends.  As shown below, just 21 stocks have rising 50-day moving averages, while 29 have 50-DMAs that are in decline.  Of the 50 stocks listed, just fifteen currently have average daily ranges of more than 5%, further illustrating how overall volatility is low.  Also, of those fifteen stocks, just five are trading above $20 per share.  In terms of sector representation, seven out of the eleven major sectors made the list.  Health Care is the most well-represented sector with 17 stocks, followed by Energy with ten, and Consumer Discretionary with nine.  Looking through the list, you’ve probably never heard of most of the names listed, but there are some household names including AMD, Restoration Hardware (RH), which are both in uptrends, as well as US Steel (X) and Abercrombie (ANF), which are in downtrends.  Finally, given that most the stocks have relatively low share prices, they may be volatile, but they don’t necessarily have very large swings.  That said, the highest priced stock listed (Eagle Pharma- EGRX) trades at over $80 per share, implying an average daily high/low range of just over $3 a day.

We’ll be the first to admit that there are a lot of nutty looking charts out there, but one of the contenders for craziest chart has to be National Beverage (FIZZ).  After reporting solid earnings earlier this month, the stock has traded higher for 14 straight days, during which it has rallied 38%.  In those 14 days, FIZZ has also closed higher than it opened every single day.  YTD the stock is already up 62% and its one-year return is 95%.  Not quite a double, but close.  So what does National Beverage do that has resulted in such strong performance?  An energy drink?  A miracle medical elixir?  A hangover free alcoholic cocktail?  A liquid cannabis drink?

No to all of those.  National Beverage’s specialty drink is good old fashioned seltzer water.  Sure, it’s a trendy looking can and name, but it’s still seltzer water – the same stuff you can buy at the supermarket for under 50 cents a liter.  You have to give the company credit, though, because if they’ve managed to be this successful on the back of selling seltzer water, they deserve every penny.  It also doesn’t hurt that three-quarters of the company’s outstanding shares are held by the company’s founder, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of shares left to trade in the secondary market.

Today’s Consumer Confidence report for the month of March was impressive on a lot of fronts.  Besides the fact that it was the fifth biggest beat relative to expectations for the headline index since 1999 and both Present Situation and Expectations saw healthy increases, confidence levels are also now comfortably above the highs we saw during the prior expansion from 2003 through 2007.  That breaks what had been a trend of lower highs in confidence that formed from the peak Consumer Confidence readings in the 1990s.

If there was one concerning aspect of the report, though, it was the factors that drove confidence levels higher.  The chart below compares Consumer Confidence based on consumers with income levels of more than $50K and between $35K and $50K.  As shown, while higher income Americans saw their confidence levels surge to the highest levels since late 2000, confidence among consumers with more modest incomes actually declined and has yet to exceed the peak levels we saw from the last cycle.

Yesterday may have been a moral victory for the bulls as the DJIA rebounded well off of its early lows, but at the end of the day, it still finished down for the eighth straight day.  It was also the first day of the losing streak where the DJIA never traded in positive territory on an intraday basis.  It’s still early today, but the DJIA is currently on pace to open modestly in the red once again, and if those declines hold until the end of the trading day, it will be the first time the DJIA has been down for nine straight trading days in over 39 years.  A large percentage of people working on Wall Street today weren’t even alive the last time the DJIA had a nine-day losing streak.

The table below lists the ten prior nine-day losing streaks that the DJIA has seen in its history going back to 1896.  For each streak, we list the magnitude of the decline in the first nine days, how many trading days the losing streak lasted overall, as well as how the DJIA performed over the following week and month.  The longest losing streak the DJIA has ever had was fourteen trading days, which was back in 1941.  Like the current period, the DJIA’s decline during the initial nine days back then was very muted (1.51% compared to about 1.9% now).  Interestingly enough, of the ten prior streaks where the DJIA was down for nine straight days, more often than not (six times) it went down for a tenth day as well, and half of the time (five times) it went on to decline for at least an eleventh day.  Looking at returns going forward, the DJIA’s average one week change following the ninth straight day of losses has been a gain of 0.2% (median: -0.2%), while the average one month return has been a gain of 2.0% (median: +1.6%).  If you are looking for the market to snap back quickly from here after nine straight days of declines, it is generally not the norm.