While the DJIA wasn't quite able to hang on to its highs from earlier in the day, it still managed to finish the day higher on Monday, extending its streak of daily gains to eight. That's right, the Dow hasn't had a one day decline since May 2nd! The table and chart below highlight each of the DJIA's winning streaks of eight or more trading days since the prior bear market lows in March 2009. As the chart illustrates, during the first two years of the bull market there were three such streaks. Then, in the five-year stretch from March 2011 through March 2016, there was only one streak of eight or more days. In the last two years, though, the pace of streaks has picked up again with five now in the last two years alone.

In the table, we have listed the date of the 8th straight up day during each of the prior streaks along with the total number of days the streak lasted, the Dow's performance during the first eight days, as well as its performance on day nine and over the next four weeks. Interestingly, based on the eight prior periods, the DJIA has a better than average chance of extending the streak to nine days and has been flat or up on the day after each of the last five streaks eight-day streaks. Over the following four weeks, the average (0.69%) and median (0.42%) are also positive, but in this case, it really is a coin flip as to whether the Dow rises or falls with four-periods of gains and four of losses.