Some Perspective on the “Can’t Lose” Market

Here are some wild stats about the current rally in the S&P 500 in 2013 which brings the gains to 17%+:

• Of the twenty weeks this year, just four have been negative weeks.  
• Of the four negative weeks just one has included a loss over 2%.
• Of the four negative weeks just two of them included losses over 1%.
• There have been zero 4%+ corrections this year.
• The S&P 500 has gained about 0.18% on average per day year to date.
•  The S&P 500 has traded above its 50 day moving average for 98% of the year.
• The S&P 500 is 12.8% above its 200 day moving average.
• The S&P 500 trades at 12.8% or higher from its 200 DMA just 8.3% of the time.
• Said differently, the market spends 91.7% of its existence BELOW the current levels.

• Bonus scary fear mongering unimportant corollary:  in 1987 the market shot out of the gates to a 18% gain by May 15.  It rallied another 10% before losing more than all of the annual gains in October during the crash.

There’s some perspective on how incredible this year’s move has been so far.