The good news is:
The secondaries outperformed the blue chips last week.
The Negatives
Last week flatlined. There was little movement in prices or the breadth indicators.
The first chart covers the past 6 months showing the Nasdaq composite (OTC) in blue and a 10% trend (19 day EMA) of Nasdaq new highs (OTC NH) in green. Dashed vertical lines have been drawn on the 1st trading day of each month.
OTC NH remained dead in the water.
The next chart is similar to the one above one except it shows the S&P 500 (SPX) in red and NY NH, in green, has been calculated with NYSE date.
Ditto for NY NH.
The next chart covers the past 6 months showing the SPX in red and a 40% trend (4 day EMA) of NYSE new highs divided by new highs + new lows (NY HL Ratio), in red. Dashed horizontal lines have been drawn at 10% levels for the indicator; the line is solid at the 50%, neutral, level.
NY HL Ratio remained slightly negative last week.
The Positives
There was little direction anywhere last week.
I put the next charts in the positive group because they were not negative.
The next chart is similar to the one above except it shows the OTC in blue and OTC HL Ratio, in red, has been calculated with Nasdaq data.
OTC HL Ratio went slightly positive last week.
The next chart covers the past 6 months showing the OTC in blue and a 10% trend of Nasdaq new lows (OTC NL) in brown. OTC NL has been plotted on an inverted Y axis so fewer new lows move the indicator upward (up is good).
OTC NL went nowhere last week.
The next chart is similar to the one above except it shows the SPX in red and NY NL, in blue, has been calculated with NYSE data.
NY NL also was flat.
Seasonality
Next week includes the 5 trading days prior to the 2nd Friday of May during the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle. The tables below show the daily change, on a percentage basis for that period.
OTC data covers the period from 1963 to 2018 while SPX data runs from 1953 to 2018. There are summaries for both the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle and all years combined. Prior to 1953, the market traded 6 days a week so that data has been ignored.
Average returns for the coming week have been negative by all measures.
