Stock Market Election Week Modest Gain

By: PhilStockWorld

Courtesy of Doug Short : After two days of harsh post-election selloff, the S&P 500 finished the day with a modest gain. For the first 30 minutes of trading, the index appeared directionless, but a strong consumer sentiment number put the index in rally mode, which lasted to the lunch-hour interim high, up 1.04%. The index then gave up most of the gains. A mid-afternoon rally had no staying power, and the index closed with a small but welcome gain of 0.17%. For election week, the index fell 2.43%. This was the worst weekly performance since the last week in May.

Here is a 5-minute chart of today’s action.

Here is a 15-minute look at Election Week.

Here is a daily chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages. Over the past four weeks the index has been playing tag with the two MAs. It will be especially interesting to see how the index comports itself next week in relation to the 200-day MA.

The index is now up 9.72% for 2012. From a longer-term perspective, the S&P 500 is 104.0% above the March 2009 closing low and 11.8% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.

For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.

- Phil

www.philstockworld.com

Philip R. Davis is a founder of Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com), a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders. Mr. Davis is a serial entrepreneur, having founded software company Accu-Title, a real estate title insurance software solution, and is also the President of the Delphi Consulting Corp., an M&A consulting firm that helps large and small companies obtain funding and close deals. He was also the founder of Accu-Search, a property data corporation that was sold to DataTrace in 2004 and Personality Plus, a precursor to eHarmony.com. Phil was a former editor of a UMass/Amherst humor magazine and it shows in his writing -- which is filled with colorful commentary along with very specific ideas on stock option purchases (Phil rarely holds actual stocks). Visit: Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com)

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