11 March 2008

SP 500 Bear Market Update: Daily Charts: March 11


We have been posting SP 500 bear market update charts, in which we compare the current 2007-8 bear market with the last bear market and recession which we had in 2000-2002. We have been doing this on the weekly charts.

The problem with the weekly line chart is that it really doesn't catch the intra-week volatility one sees in bear markets, with steep declines and snapback short covering rallies. The advantage of course is that it is easier to see the matching and the 'big picture' of the market moves.

Since intra-week volatility hit a five year record in the Dow moonshot today, we thought it would be useful to show a DAILY chart which compares the same two bear markets in the same way, with time and price percentage roughly mapped to the same values. It just shows the fluctuations with much greater detail than the weekly charts.

Here it is: