The Daily Number Articles

Today's number is... 21

Our US dollar Advance-Decline line just closed at 21-year highs.

Here’s the chart:

(right-click and open image in new tab to zoom in)

Let's break down what it shows:

• The blue line in the top panel shows the price of the US dollar index.
• The black line in the bottom panel represents the US dollar Advance-Decline line, which is comprised of 23 key currency pairs.

The Takeaway: The US dollar has been ripping higher over the past month, and when we look beneath the surface, we see healthy breadth readings and confirmation of strength as our US dollar Advance-Decline line has reached its highest level in 21 years.

Typically, a strengthening US dollar would indicate that risk assets like stocks are facing challenges, given the broad intermarket implications of the US dollar. 

However, it appears that stock market bulls remain unfazed by the strengthening dollar. Perhaps a weaker dollar isn't essential for stocks to continue their rally - at...

Today's number is... 16

On Friday, we saw the S&P 500 closed down 1.3%. This marks the 16th time this year that the index has declined by 1% or more in a single day.

Here's the data:

(right-click and open image in new tab to zoom in)

Let's break down what it shows:

The first column represents the year, while each subsequent column indicates the number of large down days for that year, ranging by declines of 1%, 2%, and 3% or more and total count.

The Takeaway: Although experiencing 16 declines of 1% or more might seem significant, it is actually below the historical average. Since 1950, the average year typically experiences about 25 such declines. During 2024, most of the 16 days with a 1% or more market decline occurred amid a short-term market pullback.

On average, each year tends to have 3 to 4 pullbacks of 5% or more, and in 2024, we have only seen two pullbacks of this size.

Therefore, a similar-sized pullback at this point would be completely normal and wouldn’t be surprising at all.  ...