It’s downright wintry on Wall Street right now. Firmly establishing the worst start of a December for the US stock market in 38 years, all three major stock indices plumbed the greatest depths they have hit all year … and it’s been a bad year! The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at 2,546 and 6,754 respectively. The Dow closed down 504 points to rest at 23,593. If it closes the tiniest nudge lower to a point it hit midday today, it will establish the worst start to a December since the Great Depression. Moreover, the market fell on swelling volume at a time of year (Santa-Claus-rally-time) when volume of trading is supposed to decrease. It would appear traders are holding vigil around their computer screens, rather than setting out on Christmas vacations.
Two of the major indices have made their death cross, and the Dow now sits right on the edge of crossing that boundary, which marks a definite change in the market’s major trend line from upward to downward. (A “death cross” is when an index’s 50-day moving average drops lower than its 200-day moving average. Since this happens after both averages have turned downward, it indicates the short-term average is accelerating in its bender for the bottom.) The dailies of all indices have also broken through the long-term trend lines established by the lowest points of the nearly decade-long bull market since it began at the bottom of the Great Recession in 2009:
Read the rest here: The Great Recession