While the DJIA is putting in a solid effort at maintaining its impressive winning streak, another potentially more impressive streak looks to be coming to an end today.  With a decline of over 9% today, not only are shares of NVIDIA (NVDA) now trading down for the year, but they are also well below their 50-day moving average (DMA), a level the stock hasn’t closed below in over a year!  That’s right, the last time NVDA closed below its 50-DMA was back on 2/17/16.  At its peak earlier this year, the stock rallied over 330% from that day last February, and even after the recent pullback the stock is still up over 262% since then.

What makes the streak that NVDA broke today so impressive is how long it was compared to every other stock in the S&P 500.  At 256 trading days, NVDA’s streak was more than twice as long as the second-longest streak.  As shown in the chart below, shares of Western Digital (WDC) now have the longest current streak of closes above the 50-DMA at just 117 trading days.  Even five months is impressive, but it’s like comparing a big-leaguer to a triple-A player.

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 since our last update.

Along with an overall decline in market volatility, individual stock volatility has also been on the decline.  Of the 50 stocks highlighted in the table, just 13 have seen an average daily range of more than 5% over the last 50 trading days.  In terms of the breakdown between stocks in uptrends and downtrends, up trending stocks have the edge at 29 to 21, but given the run the market has been on, we would have expected the disparity to be even wider. The two most volatile stocks in the S&P 1500 are currently Century Aluminum (CENX) and CARBO Ceramics (CRR), which are both in short term uptrends (rising 50-DMA) and have seen average daily moves of 5.8%.  Given that both stocks are trading at around $15 per share, though, their average daily range is still less than a dollar.  In terms of dollar moves instead of percentage moves, the biggest mover is Eagle Pharmaceuticals (EGRX).  With a share price of $73.74 and an average daily range of 4.6%, EGRX trades in an average range of over $3 per share every day.

Looking at the list below, there aren’t a whole lot of household names on it.  Some of the more notable names, though, include US Steel (X), Advanced Micro (AMD), Restoration Hardware (RH), and Fossil (FOSL).  In terms of sector representation, stocks from seven out of eleven sectors comprise the list, with Health Care (14), Energy (12), Materials (9), and Consumer Discretionary (8) dominating the list.  Not surprisingly, not a single stock from the Utilities, Telecom Services, Consumer Staples, or Real Estate sectors made the list.

With nine straight record closes for the DJIA, it should come as a surprise to no one that bullish sentiment increased in the latest week.  What continues to amaze us, however, is the level of sentiment.  According to the latest sentiment survey from AAII, bullish sentiment rose by 5.4 percentage points to 38.46%.  This marks the sixth straight week where bullish sentiment has come in below 40%, but more importantly, it’s a record 112th straight week where bullish sentiment has come in below 50%.

While bullish sentiment increased, bearish sentiment was relatively unchanged at 32.31% (32.36% last week).  In other words, nearly one-third of investors are flat out bearish.  Also, if you look at the right-hand side of the chart (red circle), bears have been sneakily trending higher in the last several weeks.

Pretty much all of the increase in the bullish camp this week came from neutrals which fell below 30% for the first time since the Inauguration.

Jobless claims for the latest week came in slightly higher than expected Thursday morning, rising from 238K up to 244K, which was 4K above the consensus estimate of 240K.  There’s not much new here in the headline number; jobless claims remain exceptionally low by historical standards and have now been below 300K for 103 weeks.  That’s the longest streak since 1970 – a time when the US population was a lot larger than it is now.

Even with the increase in the weekly print, the four-week moving average dropped by over 3K, falling to 241K.  That’s a new post-recession low and a level that hasn’t been seen since 1973.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, claims were also solid, falling from 245.9K down to 240.5K.  For the current week of the year, this is more than 100K below the average level since 2000 and is the lowest level for the current week going back to 1969.

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Below is a chart of the S&P 500 going back two years, with the index’s 50-day moving average and 200-day moving average included.  As you can see, the S&P has moved well above both its 50-day and 200-day at this point, and it’s currently trading at the top of an uptrend channel that began forming over a year ago.

Below is a chart showing the 50-day moving average spread for the S&P 500 since October 2008.  This simply measures the percentage that the S&P’s price is trading from its 50-day.  While there’s been a lot of talk recently about how extended the market has gotten, at +3.45%, the S&P isn’t really trading that far above its 50-day on a relative basis.  There have been multiple occasions over the the last five years where this reading hit 5%.

While the index isn’t that far above its 50-day, it has been trading above its 50-day for quite some time now.  In fact, it has been 71 trading days since the index last closed below its 50-DMA.  As shown in the chart of these streaks below, 71 trading day streaks haven’t been that uncommon either.  However, given where the index is trading at the moment, it’s going to take a pretty significant drop for the streak to break, meaning at this point we’ll likely surpass the 80-trading day level that hasn’t been topped since 2010.

And while the S&P isn’t that far extended above its 50-day, it has moved pretty far above its 200-day.  At +8.57%, the S&P’s 200-day moving average spread is at its highest level since mid-2014.  Notably, the 200-day spread trended lower from early 2013 through late 2015, but since the start of 2016, this reading has been trending higher.

The S&P has now closed above its 200-day for the last 165 trading days.  Below is a chart showing streaks of closes above the 200-day going back to 2008.  It’s going to take a massive rally from here to eclipse the 477 trading day streak that we saw from late 2012 to late 2014!

With the DJIA trading right around the flat line today, things could go down to the wire on whether or not the index’s current winning streak makes it to nine.  In the Dow’s history, there have been 48 streaks that ended at 8 consecutive up days (if we close down today, it will make it 49).  There have been 22 streaks that ended at 9 days, and 14 that ended at 10 days.

In the table to the right, we have provided a table summarizing the number of winning streaks for the DJIA that lasted eight or more trading days.  Going all the way back more than 120 years, the longest winning streak for the DJIA was in the 14 trading days ending 6/14/1897.  In addition to that streak, there were also two that lasted 12 or more days.  In January 1987, there was a 13 trading day winning streak, while in December 1970, the DJIA went a dozen trading days without a decline.  Once you get below the 12-day threshold, streaks of between eight and eleven trading days are not quite as rare, but they’re still very uncommon.