The S&P 500’s streak of more stocks going down than up hasn’t been longer since 9/11
The S&P 500 is just a hair shy of record highs, with the SPDR S&P 500 Trust up comfortably on Wednesday — but breadth in the stock market has been absolutely brutal.
More components in the benchmark US equity index have fallen than risen for eight consecutive sessions. That makes for the longest such streak since the run-up to and aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Usually, when breadth is this consistently poor, the market is doing terribly. For instance, the last eight-session streak of down days for the advance-decline line came as the S&P 500 bottomed in December 2018, around the debt ceiling debacle in 2011, and during the financial crisis in 2008.