Dow squanders early gain and is now on verge of longest losing streak in three months. YTD - 0.83%

[Roland99]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-poised-for-longest-skid-in-3-months-as-stock-market-set-to-extend-slide-2018-11-14

U.S. stocks pivoted lower early Wednesday, with the Dow gathering losses as blue-chip component Apple Inc. was on the brink of entering bear-market territory, weighing on Wall Street.

How are the benchmarks faring?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.56% fell 55 points, or 0.2% at 25, 231. If the losses hold, Wednesday would mark the fourth consecutive loss for blue chips, the longest streak since Aug. 13, according to FactSet data. The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.53% ESZ8, -0.82% is down 0.2%, or 4.2 points, to 2,718, as it seeks to avoid five straight down days. Meanwhile, The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.54% is falling 21 points, or 0.3%, at 7,180.

On Tuesday, the Dow slid 100.69 points, or 0.4%, to 25,286.49; the S&P 500 fell 4.04 points, or 0.2%, to 2,722.18; while the Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 0.1 point to 7,200.87.

What’s driving the market?
Casting a pall over market sentiment on Wednesday was a drift lower by shares of Apple Inc. AAPL, -2.18% toward a bear market, defined as a decline of at least 20% from a recent top. Apple’s shares off 1.8% are down about 18.5% since a peak in early October. By dint of its lofty market value and share price, the iPhone maker has been a key proxy for investment sentiment and momentum on Wall Street because the Nasdaq and S&P 500 index are market-capitalization weighted gauges, while the Dow is a price-weighted index.

Current values:

Dow 25,138.64 -147.85 -0.58%
S&P 500 2,706.78 -15.40 -0.57%
Nasdaq 7,159.95 -40.92 -0.57%
GlobalDow 2,902.15 -9.33 -0.32%
Gold 1,208.30 6.90 0.57%
Oil 56.67 0.98 1.76%

YTD gains are a paltry 0.83%!

[Achilleaze]

1. #TrumpSlump (R)

Time for Dirty Donny to slither out of his republican man cave and say something stupid, try to blame someone else (Dems) for the catastrophe he and his republican cronies are visiting upon our Once Great Nation.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Even with these recent losses, the Dow is still well above

what it was when Trump took office. Not that I'm giving him a lot of credit, but until it drops several thousand points, I'm okay.

[Roland99]

3. He had a good year in the markets his first year but it's only 0.8% gain YTD this year

[onenote]

6. I don't think your numbers are correct.

The Dow is still up nearly 1.5% YTD, which is a paltry gain, but better than .8. And over the past 12 months, its still up around 7 percent.

NASDAQ is up 3.3 percent YTD and 5.85 over the past 12 months.

Again, not great gains, but better than .8

[Roland99]

7. I used numbers from Jan 3 to current DJIA numbers from when I posted

DJIA might have been slightly lower on Jan 2

I couldn’t get the hover any further to the left on marketwatch YTD chart


EDIT: although now today's losses are doubled from what I posted earlier.

Dow 25,008.77 -277.72 -1.10%
S&P 500 2,693.38 -28.80 -1.06%
Nasdaq 7,124.76 -76.12 -1.06%
GlobalDow 2,896.56 -14.92 -0.51%

[onenote]

9. YTD market gain/loss is measured using the closing price of the previous year as the starting point

On December 29, 2017, the Dow closed at 24719. When I checked a few minutes ago, the Dow was at 25,004 (having dropped sharply in the past hour). That's a 1.15% gain. Hard to say where the market will end up at the end of the day. It is bouncing around a bit. Could tank or might recover a bit.

[Roland99]

16. Is that level of minutiae really important?

The point is that the markets are essentially flat on the year

[BamaRefugee]

4. Yes, BUT, look at gains as a percentage, not raw number, a change of 1000 points if the market is

already at say 25,000, is not nearly the amount of a gain of 1000 if the market is at 7000.
These numbers are from January of this year but they tell the tale:
Starting with Trump’s inauguration, the Dow has risen from 19,827.3 to 25,075.1 -- an increase of 26 percent. That’s impressive.
But it’s not as impressive as its performance during the equivalent period under Obama. Under Obama, the Dow increased from 7,949.1 to 10,572 — a rise of 33 percent.
In fact, the Dow’s rise was even more impressive under Obama if you start measuring at the market’s low point, on March 9, 2009, during the depths of the Great Recession. That day, the Dow closed at 6,547. Between then and Jan. 5 — a 10-month period — the Dow rose by a stunning 61 percent. That’s more than three times faster than Trump’s rise over the same period in his term.

[onenote]

8. That's one way of looking at it.

I agree that the percentage increase is the better way to look at it. But another way is to start with a 1,000 gain in a market that's at 25,000. That's a 4 percent gain. If you compare that to a market that was at 12,500 and had a 6 percent gain -- 50 percent greater than the one described above -- you'd have increased your market holdings by only 750. While instinctively, most people would say they prefer a 6 percent return on investment over a 4 percent, if asked whether they would prefer to see their portfolio increase by 1000 or 750, most would choose the former.

[BamaRefugee]

10. ????? Are you an investor? If you only bought in at 25,000, with the same stake you had at 12,500,

you would not have been very savvy! All of the gains you had made since buying in at 12,500 are rolled into the smaller percentage of gain at 25,000, you would have lost a ton of profit by waiting. I don't see your logic.
Millionaires have been made in markets that were only 2,000 or 4,000 or whatever number, it's the PERCENTAGE gain that is the real profit!


6% is always greater than 4%, all other things being equal.

[onenote]

15. Yes. And as I said, percentage change is the better way to look at it

Not sure how you missed that statement, which was at the very beginning of my post and repeated again at the end. But my point is that some people, used to seeing reports of the market up by 150 or down by 150, will focus more on those numbers than on the percentage. They're wrong to do so, but I understand how and why it happens.

[BamaRefugee]

17. Wasn't lecturing you,re-reading I see you are referring to how "most people" think!

At first it seemed like you were offering 4% as a valid equivalent to 6%

[calguy]

5. This is how bear markets begin

Every pop gets sold.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. Trump tax cuts went into effect January 2nd of this year!!!

The slump coincides with his tax cuts going into effect. No one on the news mentions this at all, while I can guarantee if the market were up big this year they'd lead each economic segment with how much the market is up since the tax cuts went into effect.

If the day the Trump tax cuts went into effect you would have taken every penny you own out and buried the cash in your back yard, you would have done barely worse than people who left their money in.

[BamaRefugee]

12. I took my life investments out of the market in June, thankfully locking in all the gains I had made

since 2009. I learned from my losses under George Bush NOT to stay fully invested in the market with a Republican President.

I'll go back in after the huge dip that is coming, but right now totally on the sidelines and happy!

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Where did you park it?

My 401K has limited options.

[BamaRefugee]

14. Cash reserve fund.

Earns almost nothing but as bulletproof as you can get, unless something drastic beyond our imaginations happen. I can go in and out 6 times a year, I'm waiting til it's under 20,000, which I think will happen.

I'm too old to risk much now, this filthy lucre is going to have to sustain me through my doddering old age!

[Johnny2X2X]

18. Thanks

I started saving a little late, but should be OK in the long run, I'm thinking of trying to time the market like you have. If I can avoid just 20% of the losses that are coming it can get me back on track for my long term outlook.

[Roland99]

19. THURSDAY - And continuing downward!

Dow 24,804.25 -276.25 -1.10%
S&P 500 2,672.55 -29.03 -1.07%
Nasdaq 7,079.29 -57.10 -0.80%