Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Sleepy Stock Market

The S&P 500 closed at all-time highs three times in a row last week, gaining just over 1% by Friday. But you can be excused if you think this market has been rather unexciting, despite the new records. None of them have been the result of especially big days, and the weekly gains have begun to look like what we used to expect in a day.

Yesterday, the S&P finished marginally lower, so we didn't set another record, but the movement, if anything has gotten even smaller. The S&P 500's intra-day range was just five points, or just 0.25 percent. That's the third lowest daily range we've had in the last 20 years, and marked the 46th straight trading day in which the S&P closed with a move of less than 1%. We haven't had a stretch with so little movement since 1995.

Part of this is that trading remains very light, as it usually is during the summer. With many traders on vacation, volume is among the lowest it's been all year. We could see this market remain sleepy all summer.

No comments:

Post a Comment