Sloppy Trading

Dow: -208.98…
Nasdaq: +24.32… S&P: -8.80…

The S&P 500 declined 0.2% today in an uneven session, snapping a streak of seven straight record closes. The index opened at a marginal all-time high, then dipped as much as 0.9% into negative territory before cutting its losses in the afternoon.

The Nasdaq (+0.2%) set intraday and closing record highs with a small gain, while the Dow (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-1.4%) underperformed but closed off their lows. Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by roughly a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq.

The Nasdaq closed at a 52-week high today, something it’s done 1,080 times since 1984. On those days, an average of 50% of stocks on the Nasdaq advanced on the day.  Today, 31% of stocks on the exchange advanced. That’s the lowest out of all those 1,080 days.

To a degree, this goes to the crappy breadth that I talked about last night. We’ll see how long they can continue to pull this off.

An average of 41% of stocks in the Nasdaq closed above their 10-, 50-, and 200-day averages today. That’s the lowest percentage for any day when the Composite closed at a 52-week high.

Just sayin’ guys.

P&L here