It won’t be official until the close, but with the Nasdaq crossing 15,000 for the first time today, it’s on pace to cross its third 1,000 point threshold this year and the sixth since the pandemic began in early 2020. The table below lists each 1,000 point threshold that the Nasdaq has crossed over time along with the first day that it crossed that threshold, the number of days since the prior cross, what percentage that 1,000 point consists of relative to the prior threshold, and then how many upside and downside crosses the Nasdaq has had around that level on a closing basis.
Of all the 1,000 point thresholds the Nasdaq has crossed over time, the only one that it never traded back below after crossing it was 6,000 back in April 2017. Besides 1,000, that was also the 1,000 point threshold that took the longest to cross above. After first crossing 5,000 back in March 2000, it took 6,256 days for the Nasdaq to top 6,000. Since then, though, the Nasdaq has been making quick work of 1,000 point thresholds. With the exception of the 486-day gap between 8K and 9K, every other 1,000-point threshold since 6,000 has taken less than a year to cross. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, it took the Nasdaq less than six months to get from 9,000 to 10,000.
The long-term chart of the Nasdaq below includes red dots to show each time the Nasdaq first crossed a 1,000 point threshold along with the number of days for each one.
Looking at the chart above may give you a feeling of lightheadedness given the seemingly parabolic nature of the last few years. An important thing to keep in mind, though, is that as a percentage of the index’s price level, every 1,000 point threshold represents a smaller move in percentage terms. While the move from 9K to 10K represented a move of over 11%, the move from 14K to 15K represents only a little more than 7%. Looking at this chart on a log scale where each label on the y-axis represents a doubling of the index shows how modest the recent 1,000 point thresholds have been relative to earlier ones. Think about it this way, in the less than two years between when the Nasdaq first crossed 2K to when it crossed 5K for the first time (four different 1,000 point thresholds), it rallied 150%. Over the last four years, though, the Nasdaq has crossed 10 different 1,000-point thresholds, but the gain has also only been 150%. Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options.
