Percentage of Stocks Above 50-Day Moving Averages

Even though the market has made a new low, 33% of stocks in the S&P 500 are still trading above their 50-day moving averages.  At the lows last November, the indicator reached 18%.  In January, it reached 10%.  And in March, the indicator got down to 15%.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that we need to get back down to the teens before at least a short-term bottom is reached, so we'll see what happens.

On a sector basis, Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples are still hanging in there the best due to the recent strength in the dollar.  And while a lot of Financials are getting taken to the woodshed, 42% are still trading above their 50-days.  At the bottom of the barrel is Energy, where the indicator at least can't get any worse.  None of the 39 S&P 500 Energy sector stocks are trading above their 50-days.

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Comments

[Schweizer:]

Yup. Bullish percents are also no where near where they were on July 15th (they need to be oversold), so there is a lot more to go.

2008 Sep 16 03:31 PM