by Doug Short, Advisor Perspectives/dshort.com
Monday was a selloff, followed by a three-day rally characterized by strong opens. Would Friday follow suit? Overnight futures were quite positive for the S&P 500, but around 8AM they took a dive. Ninety minutes later the index opened lower and hit its intraday low a bit after 10AM, just a few minutes after the June Consumer Sentiment came in a bit better than expected. The market apparently took its cue from the consumer and rallied into the green … briefly.
The rest of the day was a mostly losing battle to best yesterday’s closing price. The final 15-minutes of day, the month and the quarter was dominated by selling. The index closed the day down 0.43%, the week up 0.87%, the month down 1.50% and the quarter up 2.36%.
This was the first monthly decline after seven consecutive monthly gains.
Here is a 15-minute at the week.
Volume today was about 16% above its 50-day moving average. The index ended the month about 10 points below its 50-day price moving average.
The S&P 500 is now up 12.63% for 2013 and 3.77% below the all-time closing high of May 21.
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.
