Chart Talk {08.22.17)

I wrote the other day about how far back in trading history you had to go to find a decline of greater than 10%.  I put this chart up today to give you some perspective of how far back you have to go to have seen the markets go through that sort of pain.  I've circled the relevant periods on the chart of the S&P 500's ETF SPY for reference.  Blue circles show the decline, the red ones show our current advance through our most recent high.  Chart comes to us from Tradingview.com, although the annotations are mine.  You can also double-click on the chart to expand it if you have trouble seeing what's on this page.

Folks we're working now on our 20th month where we've seen basically only a few bumps on the road to higher prices.  The "Brexit" shock in July of last year was only a bit over 6% before we whooshed straight higher.  The uncertainty around our elections last November knocked us back only a little over 5%.  

But that's the past and we as investors care about what's ahead even if we use past trading history as reference.  We'll take a deeper dive into what the charts might be saying in the next few days.  Today though is a day to see where we've been, and, where we've been has been marvelous. 

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in both clients and personal accounts.  Currently short SPY and ETFs related to the S&P 500 in a personal account related to an options strategy not employed in client accounts.  We reserve the right to change these investments without notice on this blog or via any other form of verbal, written or electronic communication.